Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of Barclays Bank PLC (BARC.LN), Tuesday continued its moves to bulk up its foreign exchange business in the region, with five newly created hires, including a Singapore-based Asia-Pacific sales head and several Japan appointments.

Barclays Capital said it is appointing Ivan Ferraroni, formerly Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) Tokyo foreign exchange head of sales and trading, as head of Asia Pacific foreign exchange bank sales.

Ferraroni, who will be based in Barclays' regional hub of Singapore, will be responsible for the "delivery of the full suite of FX flow and derivative products to bank clients in the Asia Pacific region," it said in a statement.

Barclays Capital is among the few investment banks regionally that has been on a hiring spree at a time when investment banks are struggling to retain talent amid onerous restrictions on pay and risk-taking,

The investment bank, which acquired the U.S. business of the bankrupt Lehman Brothers in 2008, hired around 100 Tokyo-based from Lehman earlier in the year.

On Tuesday, Barclays Capital said three of the five newly created foreign exchange hires it has made are in Japan.

Eric Schatz, formerly Barclays Capital's head of real money foreign exchange sales for the Americas, has relocated from the firm's New York office to Tokyo to be head of foreign exchange for Japan.

Toshimasa Fujii has joined the firm in Tokyo as a director for foreign exchange sales. Prior to the appointment, he was head of foreign exchange trading firm Currenex's Japanese business, Barclays said.

Naomi Koyama, director for Bank of America Merrill Lynch's foreign exchange sales in Japan, will join Barclays Capital next month.

Barclays Capital also said Tuesday that it has hired Gaurav Tholia in Singapore as vice-president in charge of foreign exchange derivatives sales to banks and private banks in Asia excluding Japan. Before this, he was at JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM).

-By P.R. Venkat, Dow Jones Newswires; +65 64154 152; venkat.pr@dowjones.com