Hong Kong Financial Firms Step Up Compliance Hiring – Report

The demand for compliance staff has reportedly risen by a third in the past few months. Lawyers with sanctions expertise are in particularly high demand.

International asset managers and Asian banks in Hong Kong have stepped up compliance hiring, prompted by US sanctions and the new national security law in the city, reports Reuters.

Some firms are also training existing staff and buying new technology to offset a talent crunch as candidates are unwilling to relocate to Hong Kong amid the ongoing Covid-19 crisis and uncertainty in the city.

According to headhunters cited by Reuters, the demand for compliance staff has risen by as much as a third from a few months earlier. Lawyers with sanctions expertise are in particularly high demand, amid the frequent sanctions activity between the US and China.

One unnamed senior banker at an Asian lender said he gave his compliance team a list of individuals and businesses linked to the sanctioned officials and “the immediate response was to either close all those accounts or hire five more sanction-specialists to do a proper audit”.

The bank decided to hire two experts and organise sanctions training for the rest of the team, despite a company-wide attempt to limit spending.

According to Reuters, there are also worries that firms implementing US sanctions in their businesses could run afoul of the national security law. Banks are trying to balance this against a need to guard their access to the US financial system.

The national security law and the US sanctions legislation are both broadly worded, giving much discretion to enforcement officers and adding to the uncertainty, the report says.