(SINGAPORE) The Republic's private bankers are playing musical chairs again - at least in some segments.

Most recently, Barclays Wealth has lured away another three senior private bankers from UBS to beef up its wealth management team here catering to non-resident Indians (NRIs) in Asia, BT has learned.

The highest-profile hire is Vikram Malhotra, who was previously head of a team of over 30 bankers at UBS in both Singapore and Hong Kong that served clients from South Asia.

He joins Barclays Wealth today as a managing director and head of South Asia, a source said.

Mr Malhotra is the second banker in seven months that Barclays Wealth has poached from that position at UBS.

His predecessor at UBS, Srinivas Siripurapu, was hired by Barclays Wealth last August - along with nine others from the UBS team serving the NRI segment. Mr Siripurapu joined Barclays Wealth in November, after a period of gardening leave, as head of its Southeast Asia and South Asia business.

Mr Malhotra was promoted by UBS to fill Mr Siripurapu's position after he left. At Barclays Wealth, Mr Malhotra will report to his former boss and lead the bank's team of relationship managers in Singapore and Hong Kong, serving mainly NRI clients in the Asia-Pacific.

Earlier this month, UBS in turn hired Vinay Gandhi from JPMorgan's private bank to fill Mr Malhotra's post, officially dubbed country team head, India International Asia.

Mr Gandhi joined JPMorgan as head of its global India business - serving rich Indian clients worldwide - just weeks earlier, in November. The bank hired him from Deutsche Bank, where he was head for South Asia.

Two other senior bankers serving the NRI segment, Jagdish Kale and Rohit Nanani, will join Barclays Wealth from UBS later this month, as directors.

Barclays Wealth has been busy building up its NRI team in recent months.

With the latest hires, it now has more than 20 relationship managers (RMs) serving South Asian customers in the Asia-Pacific. Including assistant RMs, the team is close to 40-strong, BT understands.

In a recent interview with BT, Barclays Wealth global chief executive Tom Kalaris said that while the hiring frenzy seen before the financial crisis has not returned, private bankers have become 'much more readily self-selecting'.

'The very best people are always expensive, and rightly so, and the recruiting effort associated with them is always exhaustive. I don't detect a particular change in that,' he said.

But 'I think there are fewer choices for the very best people - fewer places that the very best people will go to. They're more sensitive about which institution they would go to, than in 2006-07. That's the biggest difference.'