Bank of Singapore CEO Bahren Shaari to retire this month

SINGAPORE, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Bank of Singapore Chief Executive Officer Bahren Shaari will retire by the end of this month, according to an internal memo sent by the company's parent.

Bank of Singapore, one of Asia's largest private banks and part of Singapore's second-biggest listed lender OCBC, will announce the appointment of a new CEO "as and when it is appropriate", OCBC CEO Helen Wong said in the memo sent to staff late on Friday.

Vincent Choo, OCBC's outgoing group chief risk officer, will be appointed as Bank of Singapore's interim CEO from January, the memo said. Choo has been on the board of Bank of Singapore since 2014.

A spokesman at OCBC confirmed the contents of the memo, while Shaari also made a note of his retirement in a LinkedIn post.

Bank of Singapore is one of Asia's largest private banks with total asset under management of $109 billion as of Sept. 30, 2022.

Shaaari, who has more than three decades of experience as a private banker, took over the reins of Bank of Singapore in 2015. He steered OCBC's acquisition of Barclays' Asia wealth business in 2016, and has helped more than double the private banking business, Wong said in the memo. (Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by Anshuman Daga and Rashmi Aich)