A View from Singapore
Ben Sedler – Consultant Asia Region
Singapore is fast becoming one of the key financial hubs globally.
Historically from 2007 until 2011, Singapore’s average quarterly GDP was 6.36%, with a record high of 39.90% in March 2010. To put that in perspective, the UK’s record highest GDP quarterly growth between 1955 and 2011 was 5.30% (0.58% average).
Granted the UK’s economy is hundreds of years older than Singapore’s, however this sort of rapid growth in Singapore’s economy obviously has clear significances for the financial services industry.
Having one of the highest per-capita GDP’s in the world, more and more international Banks look to take advantage of Singapore’s stable market conditions and low taxes (a result of its state capitalist mixed economy), which has helped transform the City state into the one of the major financial services centres in the world.
Although 2011 has seen a slowdown in GDP growth, analysts expect total growth for the year to hit the 5.0% mark.
Singapore has been regarded predominantly as a middle and back office hub for international banks. This is largely due to the rental concessions provided by the government to encourage international banks to open operations in the city. As a result, with more banks increasing their presence on the ground, the need has grown for business transformation specialists. This includes individuals who have helped deliver large scale front – to – back business / finance / IT change programmes – from programme managers to business analysts. The Retail banking market is perhaps the most prevalent at the moment in this respect – ask any resident how long it takes them to find their relevant ATM machine gives an indication of how less developed the operating models are in comparison to the west.
As is the case globally, austerity is very much part of the daily vocabulary here. A consequence of this and as part of cost-cutting, the larger International Banks have started shifting their non-critical development / middle-back office production support teams to their India locations. However as Singapore is still the Asia Regional Centre, there is still a need for individuals to drive the technology programmes on the ground.
The local banks with less exposure to the global financial crisis and sitting on higher cash reserves are taking advantage of the downturn to look to implement/ integrate large enterprise level financial vendor systems to improve business and their ability to bring in new products. Therefore individuals with specific system skills from an implementation / upgrade point of view are highly sought after.
Private Banking / Wealth Management are also large markets given the proportionately large number of high net worth individuals who reside here (low taxes). Singapore has a highly governed and regulated financial services market so moving into 2012, expect FATCA to be the buzz word in the Risk & Compliance market. This American born regulation will have a large impact on the compliance job market here with individuals who have knowledge of the implications of this regulation on local and international bank’s processes benefiting.
A strong growth market in Asia in 2011 has been the financial services Management Consultancy space. A relatively new concept for the domestic banks here in Asia – the consultancies (ranging from tier 1 strategy houses to Big 4 advisories) have seen a need to increase their presence here as international banks (existing clients in many cases) look to them to assist in the delivery of complex transformation projects in the region as well as advise on risk & compliance issues as mentioned above. As a result, the domestic banks take note and follow suit, increasing the level of business for the consultancies. This rapid growth coupled with a less saturated market has removed the notorious bureaucratic and “glass-ceiling” image that is synonymous with consultancies in the western part of the world. So, the taking into consideration of quick career progression and the prospect of working on various, interesting projects has resulted in a high number of individuals looking to move from in house to consultancies.
Overall the job market in Singapore is not as buoyant as 2010 but still has “pockets” of hiring against the required skill shortages in the region. Government pressure to focus on giving local Singaporeans’ every opportunity for all vacant positions on the Island will place constraints on western based candidate’s ability to find top of the tree roles. The days of expats packages for western candidates moving over to Asia to work, are all but over!