You could always try a Chinese bank
Chinese banks have plans to expand their UK operations. Unfortunately, the vast majority of recruitment is happening at a retail level. There are, however, more interesting opportunities available - and the banks are looking for candidates locally.
"Firms like Bank of China are targeting the UK mortgage market and offering more competitive rates than domestic players and have been largely hiring for customer services roles," says Oliver Draper, director of Asia focused recruiters Consult Group. "But this is by no means the limit of their recruitment - trade finance, corporate banking and trading roles are also being created."
China Construction Bank, for instance, has FX trading operations in London and the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) runs trade financing and corporate banking out of the UK. Bank of China offers a variety of financial products including "spot and forward foreign exchange, options, FRA, swaps and many other derivatives" as well as its corporate banking functions in the UK.
CICC, the Chinese investment bank, also runs its European headquarters from the UK, although this is still a small operation.
"On the wholesale banking side, Chinese banks are predominantly looking to the UK market to recruit for relationship manager positions, risk, HR and trade finance at a senior level, as well as for operations roles," says Alistair Ramsbottom, managing director of China headhunters The Blacklock Group.
Draper points to China Construction Bank's recruitment of Simon Tyler as head of trade finance, commodities and Caroline Powell as senior executive, corporate banking for its London office earlier this year as evidence of its "progressive attitude" of looking locally for senior positions.
"There are a number of arguments for looking locally rather than transferring people from China," he says. "It's a very tight candidate pool in China, and UK bankers have a stronger client network, and greater depth of experience and the firms are beginning to realise that."
Another area of recruitment within Chinese banks' London operations is for equity sales positions within their institutional broking desks, argues Jessie Leung, associate director of Pelham Search Pacific.
"There's been some resistance from candidates in China or Hong Kong to relocate to London because of the uncompetitive tax rate," she says. "For these roles prior experience and knowledge of the Asian markets is preferred, so firms are increasingly targeting Londoners with this profile."
Chinese banks may face some stumbling blocks attracting UK talent, however. Aside from the desire to recruit people with prior Asian experience and both English and Mandarin language skills, they're not known as being particularly generous payers.
"Chinese banks pay less then their Western counterparts," says Ramsbottom. "Even locally, on the investment banking side, they're known for not being as competitive as international players."
