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As the economy booms, the number of Indonesians considered affluent or rich is on the rise, and wealth management companies are scrambling to help them grow even richer — for a reasonable fee.

Maikel Sajangbati, a board member of the Certified Wealth Management Association, said the number of Indonesians the association considered affluent or rich was expected to grow by 10 percent this year, and totaled 200,000 people as of the end of June.

The association categorizes rich as having at least Rp 1 billion ($112,000) in liquid assets, while affluent is having at least Rp 200 million.

Budiyanto Winata, senior vice president of wealth management at Bank DBS Indonesia, told the Jakarta Globe he expected the number of its premium customers — with investment of at least Rp 1 billion — to grow by more than 10 percent by the end of this year from 16,000.

“Our strategies are know your customer, give your customer a comprehensive view of the Asian market, and make best use of our connectivity in the region,” he said.

Budiyanto added that most of his customers invested in the domestic portfolio, with 70 percent onshore investment and the remainder invested abroad.

His advice to high earners who want to become rich is to save and invest, he said.

“Save 20 percent to 30 percent of your earnings and invest it. My best advice is, if you’re still young, invest in equities. It provides the biggest return and the biggest risk among any other types of investment — it’s a roller coaster ride,” he said. “But if you’re 65 years old or older, spare your heart and invest in deposits.”

Of course, other foreign wealth management companies have taken notice of Indonesians’ rising wealth. Private banks such as Credit Suisse and Julius Baer Group are expanding and trying to persuade the rich to keep more money here, instead of their traditional habit of depositing it with wealth managers in Singapore, where Indonesians invested an estimated $90 billion in 2006, Bloomberg reported this year. Indonesia’s wealthiest are accumulating money more rapidly than anywhere in Asia outside China, it said.

Sandiaga Uno, the second-youngest man on Forbes’s Indonesia rich list, told Bloomberg that private bankers inundate him with pitches and have offered everything from wine-tasting and concerts to karaoke evenings and gambling trips to Macau to solicit his business.

Of course, growing numbers of potential customers presents challenges as well as opportunities for wealth managers such as Maikel. He cited a shortage of certified wealth managers as one of the challenges faced by the industry.

“Overall there are 4,200 wealth managers but only 205 are certified managers. We need to increase that number into the ideal number of 8,000 wealth managers in five years to accommodate the rich and affluent rich.” he said.