HONG KONG :Standard Chartered is hiring at least 100 staff in China as the British lender gears up to launch an investment banking unit in the country targeting niche bond deals, the chairman-designate of the new entity said.
StanChart's aggressive hiring plan comes as foreign entrants are breaking into or beefing up their onshore investment banking units after China allowed foreign financial companies in 2019 to wholly own their domestic businesses. The heightened competition is set to push up costs of talent acquisition for financial firms.
The StanChart veteran, with 16 years of experience across Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan markets, needs regulators' approval to officially assume the role of the unit's chairman. Government bonds with a total worth of 125 trillion yuan dominate China's fixed income sector and are traded interbank, while exchange-traded bonds were only one-sixth the size of government debt as of the end of last year.