Merrill Lynch has hired four bankers from Citigroup to target wealthy Indonesians. Other banks look set to follow in its footsteps.

Local banks DBS, OCBC and UOB, as well as the large global players, are also considering recruiting staff who would generate work from Indonesia, but stay based in Singapore, according to Dennis Koh, managing partner of search firm Goshen Staines.

He says banks have begun to sound him out this year about asset management positions. “Indonesia is slowly starting to come into favour with them. But while there is potential jobs growth, the banks are taking a cautious approach to hiring for Indonesian-market roles and are just testing the water at this stage.”

Senior roles will be most in demand if banks turn their initial interest into real recruitment, Koh adds: “They have to be experienced people. Deals don’t get done in Indonesia unless you have connections there.”

Indonesia had 66,000 millionaires who held US$70bn of investable assets at the end of 2006, according to a report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini. The study said 19,000 individuals of Indonesian origin resided in Singapore and held around US$93bn in financial wealth.

However, there still aren’t enough Indonesian millionaires to spark anything resembling a hiring boom – Richard Mills, chairman of search firm Chalré Associates, says Indonesia will remain a niche market for financial jobs for the foreseeable future.