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HSBC, Standard Chartered say border reopening, finding talent key to their Greater Bay Area expansion plans
- HSBC and Standard Chartered, which have announced big expansion plans in the Greater Bay Area, want cross-border travel restrictions to ease as they face headwinds from the pandemic
- Greater Bay Area needs a mix of local and international talent, just like Silicon Valley
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HSBC and Standard Chartered’s expansion plans in the Greater Bay Area face headwinds from the Covid-19 pandemic, and finding the right talent remains a major challenge for the banks, senior executives of the two lenders said.
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Both banks have announced aggressive hiring plans to develop their business in the bay area, but cross border travel for the banks’ executives has proved to be highly impractical as they have to spend two weeks in quarantine on both sides of the border.
They said that it was important for the banks’ executives to travel easily between Hong Kong and the mainland.
“It should be a journey of just about one to two hours between the Greater Bay Area cities and Hong Kong, but now it seems one has to spend up to 21 days [in quarantine] to cross the border,” said Daniel Chan Hing-yiu, who was appointed as the head of Greater Bay Area at HSBC, a newly created post, in March.
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Hong Kong can't miss Greater Bay Area boat in post-Covid-19 recovery, Victor Fung of Fung Group says
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HSBC, the largest bank in Hong Kong and Europe, has big plans for the bay area. It has spent about US$150 million since 2019 on its first global training centre in Nansha, Guangzhou. Known as the HSBC University, the 11-storey centre will open in 2024 to provide training to over 14,000 HSBC employees in Asia-Pacific as well as senior global executives each year.
The bank also plans to grant up to HK$8 million in scholarships over the next three years for up to 100 Hong Kong undergraduates who want to work or study in the Greater Bay Area.
The bank also plans to grant up to HK$8 million in scholarships over the next three years for up to 100 Hong Kong undergraduates who want to work or study in the Greater Bay Area.
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“Finding the right talent would be a major challenge in developing [HSBC’s business] in the Greater Bay Area,” Chan told an online panel discussion on the Greater Bay Area organised by The British Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.
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