Primary tabs

Asia banks seeking tech hires over 'rock-star' bankers this year

Bloomberg Published on Mon, Jan 16, 2017 / 12:32 PM GMT+8

A-

A+

(Jan 16): Financial institutions in the Asia-Pacific region will be more inclined to hire technology specialists this year than investment bankers as they enhance product offerings and upgrade their systems, according to a survey by Options Group Inc.

Among regional financial-services managers, 40% say they expect to increase their headcount for information technology-related roles this year, according to a September-October survey conducted by the New York-based recruiter. By comparison, only 18% of the 380 managers surveyed intended to add jobs in investment banking, while 29% may do so in fixed income and equities sales and trading.

“The face of banking is changing,” Russell Kopp, a partner at Options Group in Hong Kong, said by phone earlier this month. “We’re at a juncture where increasingly it’ll be about technology, automation and big data rather than about the rock-star investment bankers.”