HSBC Hired 300 Private Bankers in a Year

HSBC Private Bank stayed on course with its hiring plan in Asia, having boosted regional headcount by 300 bankers in one year already.

The bank announced last year it would add 700 people to the private bank in Asia by 2022 from a headcount of 1,100 as of 2017-end. The bank has nearly reached half of that goal from hiring 300 bankers thus far and will seek to continue with an eye to increase onshore presence in China.

The strategy to achieve double-digit asset and revenue growth is working,» said Antonio Simoes, newly appointed global head of private banking at HSBC. And as part of that, Asia is by far the region that is growing the most.»

Asia currently represents the largest share of the bank’s overall revenue and accounts for 42 percent of its private banking assets. And despite unprecedented unrest from its key market in Hong Kong, the bank still posted a 9.4 percent and 4.6 percent year-on-year rise in assets and revenue, respectively.

Our third-quarter results showed very resilient performance for Hong Kong against the backdrop of what’s happening,» Simoes said, stressing that the broader China business was unaffected. «From a private banking perspective, we continue to have targets for Hong Kong that are very ambitious.

Simoes reiterated HSBC’s commitment to the Chinese market amidst a historic opportunity to gain presence as Beijing further liberalizes the financial sector. The country recently made a landmark decision to remove ownership limits for businesses operating in the sector which has attracted foreign wealth managers to take advantage of the opportunity including Swiss rival UBS.

Going forward, we want to be bigger in onshore China and we are looking at how to do that as regulations change,» Simoes added. «If you take a 10-year view, we will need to be bigger in onshore China.