HSBC to step up hiring in China

HSBC Holdings plans to step up hiring in China for its retail and wealth business next year. The London-based lender is persisting with its expansion in China despite Britain’s economic slowdown and measures to stem capital outflows.

The bank increased the number of retail bank employees in China’s Pearl River Delta by 57 per cent in the 12 months to September, according to Mr Kevin Martin, the firm’s Asia-Pacific head of retail banking and wealth management.

The pace of hiring may accelerate next year as HSBC Holdings expands in areas like mortgages, credit cards, personal lending and wealth services in the Pearl River Delta, he said.

“We’re exactly where we expected to be,” Mr Martin said in an interview in Hong Kong last Friday, referring to his unit’s growth in the region.

“Historically, our customers in Shenzhen were Shenzhen-Hong Kong customers. Now the Shenzhen customers stay in Shenzhen because we’re building our local business as well as our cross-border business.”

HSBC started its credit card business in China yesterday after it received regulatory approval to issue cards by itself. It had previously partnered Bank of Communications to do so. HSBC is seeking to issue more than 3 million cards in the short to medium term and add “a handful more” branches across China next year, Mr Martin said.

HSBC is trying to capture business from China’s swelling ranks of affluent individuals even as economic growth slows and the authorities take steps to curb outflows of yuan from the country and cool the property market.

Chief executive officer Stuart Gulliver said in February that HSBC will hire 4,000 employees mainly in the Pearl River Delta over five years instead of three, as a result of the economic downturn. Retail banking and wealth management accounted for 36 per cent of the bank’s Asian pretax profit in the third quarter.

Mr Martin said: “Despite everything that’s happened, we’ve done everything we said we would. Retail business is a long-term business. We don’t make decisions based on changing regulations on the day. It’s the honest answer.”