Investment Banks To Continue Downsizing Their Staff In Tokyo

HSBC Japan has been surprisingly downsizing its staff in Japan just after having entered the market. In an additional sign of the toll taken by the European debt crisis, foreign-owned financial institutions had 8% fewer workers in Japan last September than in June 2010. Read More

Accenture reveals that Gulf Banks face dramatic talent shortage

Demand for skilled banking staff is outstripping supply in the Gulf region at a time when the Western banking industry is drastically cutting its workforce, according to an Accenture survey of 47 executives at major banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Meanwhile, the region’s banks are in a race to adapt to more demanding customers and are increasingly targeting the largely untapped youth, women and small- and medium-sized business markets. Read More

Mizuho in capital alliance with Vietcombank

Mizuho Corporate Bank, Ltd. (MHCB; Yasuhiro Sato, President & CEO), a subsidiary of Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (MHFG; Yasuhiro Sato, President & CEO), announced today that it had agreed to enter into a capital and business alliance with the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), one of the largest commercial banks in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Japan and Vietnam have formed a close relationship over many years of trade, direct investment and Official Development Assistance (ODA) activities, and the importance of this relationship continues to increase. Along with strongly growing countries in Asia such as China and India, the Greater Mekong Sub-region has recently attracted a close following on the world stage as a region with high potential for economic growth. Within this, there is a high expectation of widening business opportunities for Japanese corporations going forward in Vietnam, as large-scale infrastructure projects progress and markets expand in association with the nation’s economic development.

[sws_pullquote_right] the Greater Mekong Sub-region has recently attracted a close following on the world stage as a region with high potential for economic growth [/sws_pullquote_right] As part of the program to strengthen business in the Asia region under Mizuho’s Transformation Program, this alliance aims to further improve services for our Japanese and non-Japanese customers in the high-growth emerging country of Vietnam by strengthening the partnership between MHFG and Vietcombank Group. This will be achieved through cooperation in areas including but not limited to corporate finance, investment banking, and retail finance.

MHCB has established branches in Hanoi City and Ho Chi Minh City, and this alliance will further strengthen the bank’s structure to support the business development of our customers in Vietnam by making it possible to provide services by leveraging various information as well as the domestic office network of Vietcombank.

ICBC rising its international presence, first in India and then in Pakistan and Brazil.

ICBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd has been granted a business license by the India’s central bank for a branch in Mumbai, helping the bank foray into Asia’s third largest economy.

The bank has already received approval from the China Banking Regulatory Commission for setting up its Mumbai branch.

ICBC plans to increase its global footprint by setting up new branches in countries such as Brazil, India and Pakistan, and generating 10 per cent of its assets and profits from overseas by 2016, its chairman said in April.

ICBC also plans to relay western bank presence in Africa in the Future.

For HSBC: AVP, Business Development Support

PRINCIPAL ACCONTABILITIES

• Support the Sales & Relationship Management (“RM E Teams in any ad-hoc projects, presentations or exercises. • Responsible for the completion of all responses to RFPs, RFIs and Industry Surveys
• MIS Reporting
• Support the Relationship Managers in completing the Annual Client Review of our clients by stipulated deadlines.
• Support the business in the market research
• Support the Sales & RM team in the Due Diligence Request/Questionaires from clients/prospects/investors, in the new business take-on
• Manage marketing events jointly with HSS regional/local marketing teams.
• Assist Relationship Managers in the management of clients Equeries.
• Demonstrate the characteristics of leadership to support the team in the achievement of their objectives
• Develop and maintain an effective and high quality support process for FS Sales activities.
• Maintenance of Sales Support procedures.
• To continually reassess the operational risks inherent in the business• To maintain HSBC internal control standards including the timely implementation of internal and external audit points
• Implement Group Compliance Policy

REQUIREMENTS

• University Graduate with 5  E10 years of relevant experience
• Knowledge of the securities industry is preferred
• Strong project management skills will be added advantage
• Effective communication skills, good interpersonal skills, ability to work with deadlines with analytical bent of mind are key skill requirement.

To Apply, click here

UBS launches Hong Kong Campus of UBS Business University

UBS officially opened the Hong Kong Campus of the UBS Business University at Li Po Chun Chambers in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. Established in response to the increasing demand for financial talent in Hong Kong and the region, the new campus will provide training for employees new to UBS and the industry as well as on-going professional development to existing staff. “The growth of our business and the increasingly sophisticated needs of clients require more educated, qualified employees, Esaid Chi-Won Yoon, Co-chairman and CEO of UBS AG, Asia Pacific. “The new campus will go a long ways towards making sure everyone at UBS in Asia is best in class; it also will spur research and innovation. E Yoon noted the university will help put the firm’s business strategy into practice by building an integrated, client-centric organization with leaders who communicate clearly and consistently. “Our goal is to increase leadership and management abilities while building particular competencies in legal, compliance and risk management, Ehe said. “With its highly-educated talent pool, robust financial services sector and open regulatory environment, Hong Kong is a compelling choice to locate UBS Business University’s second campus in Asia. On a more practical level, the facility in Li Po Chun Chambers represents an effective investment for internal training, Enoted Allen Lo, Country Head of UBS AG Hong Kong Branch. He continued: “An ongoing challenge for finance and banking in the region is the scant availability of talent. At UBS, our commitment to training and career development is a cornerstone of the firm’s success and a key differentiator to our competitors. As long ago as 2007 we launched the UBS Wealth Management Campus, a forerunner of the UBS Business University. E Training on the campus is delivered by senior managers as well as external and internal subject experts who seek to promote leadership capabilities and improve professional skills. In an effort to ensure global and regional alignment, the Business University team is cross-regional and cross-functional and, with staff located in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Melbourne, Beijing and Taipei, the offering is delivered locally wherever possible. The UBS Business University serves all business division for their learning and development globally. Organised along three faculties, Leadership, Advisory, and Finance and Risk, the Business University seeks both to align training and education for UBS employees around the world and promote a culture of continuous improvement and development. The new facility will augment existing education and conference centres in Schloss Wolfsberg and Seepark Thun in Switzerland as well as the Business University’s first campus in Asia located at the historic Command House in Singapore. Since its launch in 2007, the Singapore campus has delivered around 24,000 training days and approximately 2,000 training events.

RBS strengthens India Equities business with senior hire

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) announced the appointment of Devesh Kumar as Head of Equities, India in a further move to grow the Equities business in India and the region.

Mr. Kumar is responsible for all of RBS’s cash equity (research and sales), equity derivative and equity financing businesses in India. He is based in Mumbai, reporting jointly to Peter Irvine, Head of Asia Pacific (APAC) Equities and Ramit Bhasin, Head of Markets, India.

“With more than twenty years experience in equities and banking, Devesh will add significant strength to our Equities team. His appointment is a demonstration of our continued commitment to growing the Equities business in the region”, said Peter Irvine.

“India is a core market for the RBS Group and we see huge growth potential here. Devesh will play a key role in our plan to make RBS a top ten equities house in the market”, added Ramit Bhasin.

Mr. Kumar joins RBS from Fortune Financial Services India, where he was the group CEO. Prior to that, he held several roles at Centrum Broking and ICICI Securities, where he built their equities business, as well as ABN Amro Asia Equities, Daewoo Finance India, W.I. Carr, Unit Trust of India and IDBI Bank.

Mr. Kumar holds a Masters degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics (1985), and a Bachelors degree in Arts with Honours in Economics from (Kirorimal College), Delhi University (1983).

The Chinese largest world bank ICBC Chip Cards Surpass 11 Million

Since the beginning of this year, ICBC continues aggressive marketing in the chip card arena and keeps the growth momentum, pulling away from the peers further. ICBC chip cards have surpassed 11 million as of the end of March this year. Chip credit cards take up 8.9 million and chip debit cards 2.3 million, achieving an increase of nearly 1 million and 500,000 respectively from the beginning of this year. ICBC is the No.1 in terms of card issuance scale and growth in China.

While gathering speed on the card issuance volume, ICBC spent great efforts in addressing the issue of acceptance environment that is central to the progress of chip cards. As of today, the Bank has finished the restructuring of existing technology at the counter and self-service devices for the acceptance of chip cards. Worthy of note was that, customers benefit from many financial products offered by ICBC in collaboration with various industry sectors through the launch of innovative chip card services. ICBC chip cards are accepted in many areas as varied as transport management, railway passenger ticketing, highway toll, commercial co-branding, social security and medical insurance and property management. ICBC also launched chip cards carried with different functions such as offline payment in small amount, highway ETC service, electronic bonus points and door control. To cardholders, not only they can use the chip cards for payment, but also enjoy many value-added services in everyday living, such as airline service, railway service, public transport, highway pass and social security.

Statistics shows that a Chinese urban resident (living in a large or mid-sized city) averagely holds 10 cards of different types – social security card, transport card, salary card and others. This not only results in a huge waste of social resources, but also brings inconveniences to daily life. A chip card has large storage and higher security. Hence it is very ideal as a multi-function card embedded with all the functions (social security payment, public transportation or travel, membership information enquiry, identity authentication). With chip cards on the way, the advantages of “One Card, Multiple Functions” and “Combo Use” of chip card are fully manifested. Everybody just use one card for many purposes, no need to carry many cards around, convenient, fast, save resources, pointing to a resources saving society.

An ICBC executive said, ICBC is one of the earliest commercial banks in the country taking part in the R&D programs on chip cards, and for a long time in the driver seat when it comes to the research in chip card technology, industry partnership and card issuance scale. As early as 1995, ICBC issued the first smart chip card in China under the approval of People’s Bank of China, the first EMV-compliant chip card towards the end of 2005 and the first chip card compliant to PBOC 2.0 standard in 2007. Starting from 2009, ICBC is the first bank in China to widely promote the chip card. In the next move, ICBC will continue the aggressive marketing efforts on chip card in a bid to improve product innovation and customer service standard, and strive to offer the best chip card products to customers.

For a large Global bank: Head of Service Management (India, Australia)

At a time of rapid business growth this large and complex technology function providing centralized services and solutions to a large Global Bank is optimizing “the basics Eas well as transforming to become an innovative technology group.

Within their Application World we are seeking a Senior Leader to provide direction and leadership, developing and maintaining consistency of process across the delivery of all application services, aggregating and prioritising global demand for services.

The role ensures that all services delivered by the group and its supporting suppliers (internal and external) use consistent methodology, governance, process and tools so as to provide consistent quality services regardless of the multi- sourced supplier model underpinning the services.

The Head of Service Management will also be responsible for relationship management with our internal customers within Technology – Strategy & Architecture, Segment Delivery and Technology Service Management. The role will be responsible for all activities relating to Risk, Finance, Compliance, and general business management.

The successful candidate will have operated in a Global Bank or a Tier 1 Consulting or Vendor organisation with experience leading a diverse geographic reach and large scale and complex solutions.

The position is based in Melbourne, Australia or Bangalore, India and sponsorship, a relocation expense package and an excellent salary package plus bonus will be provided.

Please apply to Nikki Harkin at Talent2, Melbourne, Australia
Contact: Nikki Harkin

http://www.talent2.com/Contact-Us.html

Citi group hires 1400 staff to cope with probe issue in Indonesia

JAKARTA – Citigroup said Thursday that it has hired more than 1, 400 staff in Indonesia to handle the bank’s debt collection  operations after the country’s central bank criticised the lender for outsourcing that function previously.

“This is beneficial for all parties and stengthens controls and management in this area,” Citi country manager Shariq Mukhtar said in a press release.

The move came after Bank Indonesia said recently that the U.S. bank violated local procedures on debt collection by o

utsourcing the function to a third party.

Bank Indonesia had launched an investigation following the death of a Citi credit card debtor after being questioned by debt collectors outsourced by Citi.

Bank Indonesia Darmin Nasution said Wednesday that the central bank is considering penalties against Citi for breaching local rules on debt collection. Earlier this month, the central bank ordered the company to stop recruiting new credit card customers while the investigation was being completed.