CHINA Merchants Bank has declared its ambition to be Asia's largest private bank, with the bank in April expanding its offshore wealth-management presence in Singapore.

But behind that battle cry are growing pains that Chinese private banks entering offshore markets would have to go through, which should keep the rest of the competition largely unscathed, for now.

While China Merchants Bank has a burgeoning asset base - with the bank already managing about US$230 billion onshore in China - it appears to be trailing its foreign peers in standards, if expenditures to raise standards are anything to go by. Its cost-to-income ratio, according to an interview with Asian Private Banker, stood at about 25 per cent in 2016. For the international counterparts, the ratio is easily three times that.