Standard Chartered Bank will increase its frontline sales staff by 50 percent at its consumer banking unit in Hong Kong to cope with the local business needs.

Earlier, HSBC had said it would not recruit any staff in Hong Kong this year.

Standard Chartered aims to increase its total sales force by 15 percent, including 20 percent more relationship managers.

"There are some headwinds and it is an uncertain environment, but our long-term view is that Hong Kong is a very good market," said Owen Belman, head of consumer banking at Standard Chartered, Hong Kong.

The city was the biggest contributor to the bank in the first half. Standard Chartered's income from consumer banking rose to HK$628 million, up 15 percent from last year. The growth was driven mainly from key segments such as excel banking and priority banking.

The bank's total number of staff reached 5,500 after it recruited over 300 staff for Hong Kong operations in the first half, Belman said.

The bank will also open five to eight branches this year. In the next 12 months, the bank will inject over HK$100 million in opening branches and hiring staff, Belman said. Currently, the bank has 78 outlets in the city.

Standard Chartered is one of the overseas banks that are committed to the mainland's banking business. "Continued investments were made in opening new outlets and branches, ATM and technology infrastructure, and to increase sales, marketing and support staff," the bank said in its statement.

The majority of the overseas banks on the mainland anticipated strong revenue growth over the next few years, with clusters of banks foreseeing 40 percent and 50 percent annual growth rates. Nine of 42 overseas banks expect to double revenue growth in 2008, according to the annual PricewaterhouseCoopers' survey entitled "Foreign banks in China".

Robin Hull, general manager of Intuition, a leading training institution for bankers worldwide said: "The mainland is hiring 3,000 bankers per year at the moment." Bankers are trained mainly in the areas of credit risk, lending, trade finance, private banking, wealth management and corporate finance, he said.

Hull said that the banking industry is booming on the mainland and overseas banks only accounted for 3 percent in the current market share.

Overseas banks are preparing for the boom though they may have difficulties in tackling new regulations and retaining staff, Hull said.

(HK Edition 09/05/2008 page2)