The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has hired Jonathan Jiang from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoA Merrill) to head its global network banking business in China. According to the bank, Jiang’s hire is a key part of its overall investment programme in China and Asia-Pacific. At BoA Merrill, Jiang led the sales team for global treasury services in China. He replaces Mark Foo who has left the bank and returned to Singapore.
“Jonathan Jiang brings 12 years of extensive, all-round banking experience in China to his new role with RBS,” said Pieter Leyssius, Asia-Pacific head of global network banking at RBS, in a statement. “We are committed to helping our clients grow their local subsidiaries and can use our global network to support clients in any time zone at any time. Jonathan’s appointments will help us continue to strive to be the global network bank of choice for our corporate clients.”
In his new role based in Shanghai, Jiang will be responsible for strengthening RBS’s business with multinational corporations (MNCs) in China through the bank’s payments, trade, foreign exchange and working capital platforms. He reports jointly to both Leyssius and Frank Hamer, head of global transaction services (GTS) for China at RBS, who joined the bank from Germany’s Landesbank Baden-Württemberg at the beginning of this year.
“Jonathan’s appointment demonstrates our continuing commitment to building our corporate banking business in China and Asia-Pacific,” said Hamer. “His strong business network will be an asset to an already very strong team.”
The global network banking arm of RBS’s GTS business provides coverage for the subsidiaries of the bank’s MNC clients, which according to RBS is a key focus area for growth. Currently the bank provides services for more than 4,000 subsidiaries in Asia.
RBS has recently expanded its GTS business in Asia, appointing Anand Pande from Amba Research to the newly created role of Asia head of product management in November last year.
The bank has a total of more than 3,500 Asia-Pacific customers in cash, trade and supply chain including both MNCs and financial institutions. It also processes 23,000 letters of credit and eight million cheques annually in the region.
