Hong Kong's skyline flashes the high concentration of banks and financial institutions for which the city is famous

Top bankers are relocating to Hong Kong from such major financial centres as New York and London, in an apparent move by international financial institutions to focus their business on Asia, the region seen with the best profit potential.

The latest global bank to announce a senior executive posting is Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse. The bank confirmed in May the head of its financial institutions group, Vikram Gandhi, will move from New York to Hong Kong this summer. Credit Suisse said Mr Gandhi will continue running the global financial institutions group business from Hong Kong. "This high-growth region continues to perform above expectations, and we see even more opportunities in the coming years," said Credit Suisse global co-heads of Investment Banking Jim Amine and Marc Granetz in an internal memorandum, as reported recently in The Wall Street Journal.

Important market

"For the financial institution business, Asia Pacific is as important as Europe and America. That's why we're relocating some of our senior executives here," said Josephine Lee, Director of Corporate Communications at Credit Suisse Hong Kong." Credit Suisse has 21 locations in the region.

The move by the Zurich-based institution is part of a recent trend in the banking sector to move top executives to Asia, a region largely unscathed, to date, by the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States. Germany's largest lender, Deutsche Bank, announced in March that its Global Head of Equity Trading, Noreddine Sebtine, is relocating to Hong Kong from New York to assume regional responsibility for the equities business in Asia.

The German bank, which has already seen a 60 per cent increase in Hong Kong staff numbers over the past three years, recently announced plans to further expand its Hong Kong operations and increase headcount from 1,500 up to 4,000. "We are experiencing rapid growth in the region and in Hong Kong in particular,” said Colin Grassie, Deutsche Bank's CEO Asia Pacific. As part of its expansion plans, the bank intends to triple its office capacity in Hong Kong by 2010, leasing 18 floors of the International Commerce Centre in Kowloon.

Sign of the times
 
Industry watchers say it is a sign of the times. "When you see the banks move out a [chief executive], that's the time you say it's a huge structural change. But they are trying to put senior people out there to take advantage of the growth, and it will be interesting to see more senior-level appointments such as at the executive board level,” according to David Williams, a London-based investment banking analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton, in an interview with the South China Morning Post. 

The growing economic impact of the region, including Hong Kong, will be the focus of an international conference to be held in Hong Kong early next year. Organised by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the Asian Financial Forum will be held 19-20 January 2009. At the two-day event, distinguished business and economic leaders will exchange views on trends and developments in Asian financial markets.