Morning Coffee: What Stan Chart staff in Asia can expect from Bill Winters next week

On Wednesday next week Bill Winters takes over from Peter Sands as chief executive of Standard Chartered. UK newspaper The Telegraph has produced a handy guide to the immediate challenges he’ll be facing at the helm of the troubled lender – and we’ve distilled these down to show how the early days of his reign might affect Stan Chart employees in Asia.

1) Winters will be in your office

Expect Winters to be in Standard Chartered’s Singapore and Hong Kong offices – a lot. His predecessor Sands was “a master of cultivating relationships with the policymakers and clients in Standard Chartered’s crucial Asian markets”, reports The Telegraph. “This part of the world is far from unknown to Winters – he ran JP Morgan’s investment bank, which had extensive operations in Asia. However, he’ll need to clock up the air miles in the coming months.”

2) Winters will try to inspire you

Standard Chartered staff have endured restructuring and redundancies over the past year – 200 jobs were lost when the bank closed its equities division in January – and the firm’s employer brand has been tarnished in Singapore and Hong Kong as a result. Sands was considered something of an “absentee chief executive”, in his element when schmoozing externally with clients and regulators. Winters will have to focus more on meeting senior staff and trying to inspire his workforce as a whole.

3) Be prepared for change if you work in risk or compliance 

Below the C-suite, Winters’ top hiring priorities are to find a new head of risk and a new head of legal and compliance. If you work in these divisions get set for even more changes in strategy than you would in other areas of the bank. Your job is probably still safe, however – Stan Chart can ill afford to reduce its compliance workforce.

Meanwhile:

BNY Mellon Investment Management reportedly makes 50 job cuts in Asia. (Asian Investor)

UBS launches digital “innovation centre” in Singapore. (Business Times)

HSBC Global Asset Management appoints head of China institutional business. (Asian Investor)

Chinese flock to Hong Kong for stocks they could buy at home. (Bloomberg)

DBS to open its first Australian branch in Sydney later this month. (Business Times)

Citi hires Kuniyoshi Hayashi from Deutsche Bank to head its Japanese markets and securities division. (Bloomberg)

ANZ named as one of the “appalling” banks in rate-fixing probe. (AFR)

Should Singapore and Hong Kong be collaborating more, competing less? (Straits Times)

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