Singapore’s OCBC to invest more in Greater China despite geopolitical tensions

By Xie Yu

HONG KONG, – Singapore’s Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp plans to add to its investments in Greater China, and is recruiting staff to help lift private banking assets in the region by 50% by 2026, senior executives said at a event in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

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OCBC, Singapore’s second-largest bank, is on track to spend HK$1.5 billion by the end of 2026 on digital and tech platforms in Greater China to improve customer and employee experience, said Chief Executive Helen Wong.

The reason for the bank to continue investing in Greater China, contrasting with what some western peers have been doing, is that it continues to see great growth potential in the world’s second-largest economy, and synergies with operations across Southeast Asia, Wong said.

“For geopolitical tensions, and for some of the concerns and issues in their own country, they need to pull resources back to their own country,” she said.

“We are fundamentally an Asia-based financial group,” she added, noting OCBC was benefiting from some peers leaving the Greater China market.

Meanwhile, the bank has been expanding its Hong Kong-based private banking team serving Chinese clients. The relationship manager team in Hong Kong grew by 15% in headcount in the first four months, said Rickie Chan, chief executive of Bank of Singapore, OCBC’s private banking arm.

Chan expects the pace of recruiting relationship managers to continue for the rest of the year, as he aims to grow assets managed by the Hong Kong hub by 50% by 2026.

OCBC also plans to expand its regional engineering hub in Greater China by hiring more than 300 tech specialists over the next three years, an increase of 75%, to support its digital transformation and support business growth.

Bank of Singapore has around $116 billion under management, while Greater China is its second-biggest market after Southeast Asia, Chan said, without disclosing the current size of assets managed by his team in Hong Kong, or the size of the team.

Chan was chief executive of Credit Suisse’ Hong Kong branch, before he joined OCBC this February.

OCBC reported a better-than-expected 5% rise in first-quarter profit earlier this month, as Singapore banks all beat market expectations amid a higher-for-longer interest rate environment globally.

The bank also said then it had benefited from strong inflows from wealthy clients in Asia, including in China, as well as from Europe and the Americas, drawn in by its political stability.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

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