RBS makes four key appointments to Asia corporate risk business

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has added four new senior people to its Asia-Pacific corporate risk solutions team, poaching them all from Barclays Capital.

Three of the hires, led by Inseok Cha who has been made head of corporate risk solutions for Korea, are to be based at the bank's Seoul office, while the fourth, Ron Pathak, will be based in Singapore.

Cha will be responsible for expanding his team's delivery of the bank's risk management products to RBS's Korean corporate client base, including physical and derivatives products across key asset classes such as FX, rates, credit, equities and commodities. He will also manage inbound opportunities for RBS's global accounts dealing in the Korean jurisdiction.

Jong Joon Lee and Seung Hyun Park join as corporate directors, corporate risk solutions for Korea, reporting to Cha. In turn, Cha will report to John Cummins, head of corporate risk solutions for Asia-Pacific, and locally to SY Choi, head of global banking and markets for Korea.

Cha was a managing director and head of FX corporate/derivatives risk management at Barclays Capital. Prior to that, he held senior sales positions at Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

In Singapore, Pathak joins from Barclays Capital as senior director, structured risk solutions, reporting to Mathew Simpson, head of structured risk solutions for Asia-Pacific. Pathak will provide multi-disciplinary liability hedge solutions for event-driven transactions, emanating predominantly from RBS's structured finance and investment banking activities.

Commenting on the new hires, which were announced on Monday and will all have started by the end of this week, Cummins said: "These are timely and significant hires for RBS as we grow our corporate risk solutions business on the ground, offering a truly client-centric platform within the geographies in which we operate". The regional team is about 100 strong.

The UK bank, which has its headquarters in Edinburgh, said in February that it was reviewing its position in two-thirds of the countries in which it does business, and would significantly reduce its business with retail and small and medium enterprises in Asia to focus on its wholesale banking franchise. An RBS spokesperson said yesterday that, "Asia-Pacific continues as one of four core markets for RBS and we remain fully committed to our wholesale banking business".

A prominent casualty of the banking crisis in October, RBS was bailed out by the British government which took a 70% stake in the lender in January.