Stanchart on hunt for employees for SME operations

Lender aims to beef up workforce by adding 1,200 as it plans to double SME clients.

Standard Chartered's consumer banking group, which has been aggressively expanding its private and priority banking operations, is now turning to the SME business which it hopes to double in the next three years, its CEO said on Monday.

The UK-based emerging markets-focused lender aims to hire 1,200 relationship managers to serve small and medium enterprises in the next three years, and will offer a broader range of services such as managing foreign exchange risks and coping with volatile commodity prices.

"Almost everything we are trying to do, we want to double," Stanchart's CEO for global consumer banking Steve Bertamini said in an interview.

Stanchart has been a beneficiary of the global financial crisis, which led to the collapse or government-led bailouts of many larger rivals. Its five-year old private bank is already a big player in Asia while its priority banking business saw a doubling in new customers last year.

In August, the UK bank said it will try to further grow its wealth management business by hiring around 800 bankers for a new service aimed at affluent Asians who do not qualify for priority banking services.

View the full story in the Economic Times.