By SIOW LI SEN

IF anyone doubts the strong recovery of Singapore's banking sector, just ask Alvin Tan, the ang pow king who, two months before the Chinese New Year, is turning away new customers.

'It was unexpected that the market would recover so fast,' said Mr Tan, co-founder and creative director of Caston Pte Ltd, which this year marks 20 years of making the red packets, mainly for banks. Banks make up 80 per cent of Mr Tan's customers.

'I have slowed down order taking. I can't do more new customers, only regular customers,' said Mr Tan. The reason is that the raw material - paper and foil - has to be ordered from Europe and the United States which requires four to five months lead time. 'My production schedule has reached full capacity,' he revealed.

Last year, because of the financial crisis, Caston's ang pow sales fell 15-20 per cent due to smaller orders from foreign banks. Some customers disappeared, such as Lehman Brothers which collapsed in September 2008.

Mr Tan estimates that sales this year have risen 10-15 per cent as overseas orders have increased as well as new private banks setting up in Singapore. In addition, local customers such as DBS and OCBC Bank have increased their orders to cater to their expanding overseas branch networks such as in China.

Orders from the local banks run into several million pieces while foreign banks can buy from 50,000 to 500,000 pieces.

New foreign bank clients have come from Europe and Australia, Mr Tan said. Caston has also got around 20 private bank customers, up by three to four from before, he added.

Caston's deluxe ang pows are in such demand that it gets orders from banks based in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia - markets which have thousands of ang pow producers.

Caston expects to produce about 60 million pieces of ang pows this year. Prices range from 3.5 cents to 25 cents apiece.

This article was first published in The Business Times.