Zurich-based Julius Baer is hiring Francisco Buch Torres and Rodrigo Vela Bezanilla as private bankers for its Mexico team, effective immediately, according to a memo seen by finews.com. A spokesman confirmed the duo's hire.

Torres, who Julius Baer is hiring as a senior relationship manager, was most recently a private banker to the ultra-wealthy at UBS. Bezanilla joins from Credit Suisse, where he tends to high-net work clients from Mexico on an advisory and discretionary basis.

Mexico is one of several newer focus markets for Julius Baer, which is still reverberating from a Venezuelan offensive which ended badly. Under regional boss Beatriz Sanchez, the Swiss wealth manager now targets Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, and has pulled out of both Venezuela and Panama.