HSBC Ramps Up China Hiring Despite Tensions

HSBC stay on course with its China ambitions with the latest target to hire 2,000 to 3,000 wealth planners over the next four years for its mainland business. HSBC’s will seek to broadly expand its count of wealth planners in Asia with much of the growing focus placed on China where it could hire up to 3,000 by 2024. The bank is already housing its first 100 digitally-enabled wealth planners in its Guangzhou and Shanghai offices.

Our new venture in mainland China, signals not only our commitment but our progress in increasing investments in people, technology, and wealth capabilities over the next few years, said Greg Hingston, HSBC’s APAC head of wealth and personal banking, in a statement.

This will be central to our ambitions to become the leading wealth manager in Asia.

While accelerating its global overhaul which includes 35,000 job cuts, the bank continues to hire in the region, most notably for its China business.

Since 2017, the bank hired 800 people for its wealth management business and opened six Jade Centers – its affluent segment – since the start of 2019. Earlier this year, the bank also reportedly said it had also planned to add another 500 to its private banking and wealth management business by 2022 with a focus on Hong Kong and Singapore.

HSBC maintains its expansion plans for its newly merged retail and private banking unit despite increasing political uncertainty including, most notably, the British bank’s involvement in the Huawei scandal and its public support for the controversial national security law in Hong Kong.

On the former, HSBC faces increasingly intense pressures in the mainland over its involvement which most recently included allegations that it feigned ignorance about Huawei’s dealings and even suggested that it took unnecessary risks that resulted in U.S. detection. State-backed media Global Times claimed last month that the bank’s resumption of planned job cuts may mark the beginning of the end for the embattled British bank in China, citing an unnamed Beijing observer that suggested it could be pushed out of the mainland market over the legal scandal.

In the first half, pre-tax profits at HSBC plunged 65 percent to reach $4.32 billion missing analyst estimates of $5.67 billion. Although its China business posted $1.5 billion of pre-tax profits, the wealth and personal banking business in the country registered a $26 million loss.