HSBC to Hire 3,000 Wealth Planners in China Amid Tensions

(Bloomberg) — HSBC Holdings Plc is planning a big boost to its wealth management staff in China to lift sagging profits, increasing its presence in the face of mounting political tensions between Beijing and Western governments.

Along with reporting Monday that first-half profit fell by half, the bank said it plans to hire 2,000 to 3,000 wealth planners within four years in China. The first 100 new people have already started in Guangzhou and Shanghai, it said.

London-based HSBC, which makes more than half of its revenue and almost all of its profits in Asia, is walking a political tightrope in pushing further into the world’s most populous nation. The bank is fielding criticism over its dealings with Huawei Technologies Co. and an endorsement of China’s controversial security law on Hong Kong.

“Current tensions between China and the U.S. inevitably create challenging situations for an organization with HSBC’s footprint,” Chief Executive Noel Quinn said Monday in a statement. “However, the need for a bank capable of bridging the economies of East and West is acute, and we are well placed to fulfill this role.”

HSBC is joined by a bevy of competitors, including bank rivals such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and fund giants Blackrock Inc. and Vanguard Group Inc., in moving into China. The nation represents a projected $30 trillion asset management market. China is further opening its financial markets this year to foreign investment banks and insurers, partly to boost economic growth.

The hunt for talent is seen as one of the biggest obstacles to expansion, with local banks also pushing ahead. China’s Citic Securities Co. added about 1,500 investment advisers since 2017, an increase of 73%, according to a December report by Goldman Sachs.

HSBC said Monday it’s looking at further measures to boost performance, speeding up its pivot to Asia while cutting back in Europe and the U.S. and accelerating a restructuring of its businesses that could cut 35,000 jobs across the group.

Even so, the bank reported a $26 million loss for its wealth and personal banking business in China in the first half, while making an overall pretax profit of $1.5 billion in the country.

Earlier this year, HSBC combined its retail banking, wealth management and private banking businesses with $1.4 trillion in assets. Its private banking unit said in March that it aims to triple the number of billionaire clients in Greater China in the next three years.

“Our new venture in mainland China signals not only our commitment, but our progress in increasing investments in people, technology and wealth capabilities over the next few years,” Greg Hingston, HSBC’s head of wealth and personal banking in Asia-Pacific, said in a statement. “This will be central to our ambitions to become the leading wealth manager in Asia.”

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