More than a quarter of the staff at the Singapore office of private bank RBS Coutts have quit in a mass resignation and some are joining Swiss rival BSI. The defections could be a sign that job-hopping is beginning to pick up in Asia's competitive wealth-management market, which is recovering from last year's market meltdown.
RBS Coutts, part of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, said on Tuesday "a little over 70 people" had resigned from the bank. The departures come a few months after Hanspeter Brunner, former co-CEO of RBS Coutts, and Raj Sriram, head of its South Asia unit, left the wealth manager, sources said. Both executives are joining BSI and some staff will join them, the sources told Reuters.
The sources did not want to be identified because the hirings at BSI were not public. BSI was not available for comment. Lugano-based BSI, a unit of Italy's insurance group Generali, currently has around 50 people in its Singapore branch and a smaller number in Hong Kong where it has representative office status, a source said.
BSI's Singapore chief executive Nicola Battalora told Reuters in an interview in May that BSI was looking to expand in Asia and hire bankers. Factors contributing to the exodus of RBS Coutts employees include moves by parent RBS to defer staff bonuses as well as concerns about asset sales by RBS in Asia.