The firm did not specify, however, how many jobs are likely to be affected by the merger.

Australia’s Macquarie will merge its private banking and wealth management businesses, it announced yesterday, in a move that will result in job losses. 

The move, however, “impacts a number of advisors,” the firm said, without disclosing an exact number of how many roles are in the firing line. 

“Macquarie is supporting these advisors in a number of ways, including facilitating discussions with other firms and assisting their transition,” the group said in a statement. 

Macquarie said it intends to “concentrate its growth strategy on high net worth clients”, but added that the move does not change its strategy “to continue to grow its retail banking activities”.

Australia ranks among the world’s top-10 countries for high net worth individuals, with more than 1.2 million adults whose net worth exceeds A$1.3 million ($978,000). Since 2011, Australia has created around 80,000 new high net worth individuals, growing the cohort 7.4 per cent. 

“Focusing on attracting high net worth clients is a logical evolution of our private client business and we believe it is a space in which we can be a market leader,” Macquarie’s head of wealth management, Bill Marynissen, said. “We have carefully assessed growth opportunities in the high net-worth segment against the strong fundamentals of our business.”

He added: “We are striving to create a comprehensive and tailored wealth and banking offering for our clients that can take them from the wealth accumulation stage of their lives, through to retirement. Concentrating on one client segment enables us to better deliver on this commitment.”

Macquarie’s move comes as a government-backed probe, known as a Royal Commission, continues to dig deeper into Australia’s scandal-warped banking sector, unearthing deep-rooted malpractice among some of the country’s largest financial institutions. 

Earlier this week, the investigation was said to have claimed another casualty when Rob Jesudason, chief financial officer of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, its largest lender, exited the firm.