Barclays Wealth has hired five private bankers for its international private banking unit in Geneva.

Barclays Wealth has hired five new director-level private bankers to its international private banking division in Geneva, as part of plans to strengthen its offerings for the EMEA region.

Mike Ferguson joins as a managing director, while Sylvie Orsatti, Sana Al-Habal, Philippe Sala and Fawziyah Khazal join as private banker, director; all five were latterly at the Geneva office of Lloyds TSB International Private Banking.

In their new roles they will ultimately report into Patrick Ramsey, general manager of Barclays Bank (Suisse) and Soha Nashaat, global market leader for MENA.

The firm views EMEA as a key growth region and has identified Geneva as one of its main hubs for servicing global high net worth clients as part of its investment programme.

“These new hires are further evidence of our ambitions for our Swiss international platform,” said Ramsey.

Barclays Wealth has total client assets of £164 billion (around $266.8 billion), as at 31 December 2010.