Private banking job growth in Singapore has become the beneficiary of instability in Hong Kong over concerns about the controversial national security law.
Private banks have boosted hiring of their offshore Greater China teams by 20-30 percent, according to a «Reuters» report citing multiple unnamed sources, leading to a total of around 75 jobs over the next year.
«As client queries from China and Hong Kong are going up, everyone is looking to lock in [bankers] before supply runs out,» said one source from a top-three wealth management firm in Asia, adding that the pool of Mandarin-speaking private bankers was not big.
«Julius Baer has been growing our Greater China franchise in Singapore over the past five years,» said David Shick, head of private banking for Greater China at Julius Baer without providing any hiring details. «We will continue to hire the top and right talent in both the Singapore and Hong Kong locations as Asia is our group's important second home market».
National Security Law
In addition to fear of lost freedoms, wealth owners have been wary that the proposed national security law could allow mainland authorities to track and seize wealth. One unnamed banker reportedly noted that wealthy Chinese liked the law «from the perspective of their love for the Chinese flag, but not from their asset protection perspective».
Despite claims by the Monetary Authority of Singapore that it received no «large flows» from Hong Kong, deposits by non-residents into bank accounts from the city-state surged a record 44 percent in April, while foreign currency deposits grew 20 percent in the same month.
«The business has been growing at double digits and it will gain further momentum as we see clients moving more funds to locations such as Singapore,» added another unnamed Singapore-based source from a leading European bank.
