Singapore: Banks are Hiring again!

SINGAPORE, Jan 9 — A flurry of hiring is under way at many banks in Singapore, reversing the bloodletting of last year when the global financial crisis took a harsh toll on jobs.

More than 1,000 staff are being hired by banks, poised to cash in on the expected return of the good times. This is based on a check of banks by The Straits Times.

Many of the jobs are senior positions but entry level jobs are on offer too.

Headhunters say an entry level operations job starts at S$2,600 (RM6,240) a month, on average. Entry investment bankers, needing good qualifications, can start at S$8,000 (RM18,200).

Hundreds of banking jobs were lost here last year given that the financial services sector was at the epicentre of the global financial crisis.

British-based Barclays Bank, which rode out the crisis better than most, is leading the hiring resurgence with plans to add more than 500 staff here this year.

Most will be employed in the bank’s technology section, in general operations and in finance. Barclays already has more than 3,500 staff here.

Locally owned banks are expanding too. DBS Bank aims to fill more than 500 positions across the region including Singapore this year, from consumer to institutional and private banking.

Another British-based bank, HSBC, is recruiting 200 senior staff here this year in the wealth management field, ranging from managers to senior vice-presidents.

Malaysia’s Maybank aims to add at least 130 employees to its 1,300, including account managers, operations personnel, customer service staff and analysts.

Joining the hiring frenzy is Australian-based ANZ, with plans to double its 800-strong Singapore staff strength this year. The jump will come partly from staff taken under its wing after it bought RBS’ retail and commercial businesses.

From local to foreign, small players to big boys, almost all banks operating here have recruitment high on the agenda.

Morgan Stanley, State Bank of India, Standard Chartered Bank and OCBC Bank are just some of the others adding staff.

This hectic time for human resource staff at banks reflects newfound dynamism shaking up the financial sector here which accounted for 13 per cent of economic output in 2008.

After a year when banking jobs were like hen’s teeth, banks are emerging as one of the top customers of headhunters.

“There is a return to junior- to mid-level hires — fresh graduates and those with three to seven years of work experience. This was the volume segment which dried up last year, where senior and specialised areas were more in demand,” said Angela Kuek, manager of banking and financial services at recruitment agency Hudson Singapore.

Guy Day, managing director of another recruitment agency Ambition in Asia, said staff switching finance jobs can secure decent pay hikes. “Pre-crisis levels, we were seeing up to 20 per cent pay hikes, though we are not quite there yet.”

Banks in hiring mode are gearing up to meet clients’ needs as the economy rebounds. Wealth management seems hot, with many private banks seeking experienced bankers to cater to the well-heeled in Asia. The likes of UBS, JPMorgan Private Bank and SG Private Banking are all looking for more of this type of banker.

In good times, private banking talent is fiercely contested. Headhunters say top performers, even entire teams, could be poached by rivals dangling top dollar.

This means the ‘musical chairs’ banking jobs game is back on — after the music stopped completely and many chairs just disappeared when the crisis hit.

One of the first signs of the hiring blitz came in October when RBS Coutts Singapore suffered a mass exodus of about 70 staff - about a third of its headcount. They left to join former boss Hanspeter Brunner at BSI, a Swiss private bank.

Last month Deutsche Bank hired seven staff for its private wealth management business, including poaching senior DBS private banker Kwong Kin Mun.

That is a big turnaround from last year, when Reuters reported the bank had cut at least 50 staff from its wealth management arm here and in Hong Kong.

Still, not every bank is expanding aggressively. Citi Singapore, with 8,200 staff here, will keep numbers stable this year. ‘As we grow our business, we will continue to hire as and when necessary,’ said its HR director Lee Yan Hong.

Some like Japan’s Nomura are waiting and watching. After buying the European and Asian arms of Lehman Brothers, Nomura’s staff numbers here alone doubled to about 450, said Seiichiro Miyaoka, president of Nomura Singapore.

Sounding a note of caution, a new Morgan McKinley survey of HR managers across the financial services industry suggests recruitment will still be highly selective this year rather than widespread. — Straits Times