Why you may or may not wish to work for an Asian bank in Dubai, or a Middle Eastern bank in China

There’s one part of the world that should be attracting the attention of bankers in the Middle East currently – Asia.

This may not seem obvious, since many international banks are also cutting in this part of the world, but large Middle Eastern bank are now opening offices in the region while Asian banks are increasingly starting operations in Dubai.

In the past week the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) and the National Bank of Fujairah (NBF) have unveiled plans to enter Asia, through representative offices in China and Hong Kong. This follows a push by Emirates NBD, which opened a Beijing office in September. Noor Islamic Bank, meanwhile, recently moved into Singapore and Malaysia.

Should you be considering leveraging your Middle East experience for a new role in China?

Vivian Ng, managing director of Morgan McKinley in Shanghai, suggests that you shouldn’t be getting overly excited about the moves of Middle Eastern banks.

“Most are opening very small representative offices and we’re not hearing on any significant recruitment sprees,” she says. “If your aim is to transfer to another institution once you’re on the ground, then again this is unlikely. Few Chinese banks are hiring aggressively, and they’re very domestically focused, which means they either want Chinese nationals, Singaporeans, Hong Kong Chinese or Malaysians.”

The other factor to consider is that salaries are not as expat friendly. While Middle East financial centres lure bankers with promises of tax free salaries, Chinese income tax goes as high as 45% once you start earning over €8k ($10.3k) a month.

It’s also preferable to move to China earlier in your career, suggests Ng: “If your plan is to carve out expertise in the Chinese market, then you’ll be very well positioned when in 10-15 years Chinese banking becomes less regulated and more globally focused.”

What are the chances of a move into an Asian bank in the Middle East?

Closer to home, the Middle East – and Dubai in particular – is attracting more Asian financial institutions. The DIFC recently stated that it was attracting more Asian firms “looking to increase their exposure to opportunities arising in Africa and the West”. Jeffrey Singer, CEO of the DIFC Authority, recently went on a bridge-building trip to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong in order to promote Dubai as a “financial and logistical hub for Chinese investment in the Middle East and Africa”.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has been in the DIFC since 2008, and more than doubled its profits in the Middle East last year and indicated a desire to expand into retail banking in the region. There are over 200,000 Chinese people based in Dubai.

However, despite this there’s still not a lot of hiring from Asian institutions in the Middle East, says Magdy El Zein, managing director of Boyden Middle East.

“A big operation of an Asian bank in the Middle East is still has a headcount of only teens to mid-20s,” he says. “Most of them prefer to fly in their own people for commercial banking or investment banking positions. However, where we are witnessing hiring is in private banking, where Asian firms want wealth managers with well established relationships on the ground.”

The Bank of Singapore, for example, offers private banking services in the Middle East, as does. The latter also carries out trade finance, investment banking, corporate banking and capital markets activity in the region.