Brady Dougan, chief executive of Credit Suisse, was bullish on the bank's growth driven by its wealth management business at a conference in London yesterday. He said the bank would use its strong position to hire hundreds of private bankers and acquire in the wealth management space.

Dougan said via a webcast at the Merrill Lynch Banking and Insurance CEO conference last night, that the Swiss bank's private banking arm had benefited from strong net new assets despite volatile market conditions in the third quarter of this year.