Two prominent figures in Hong Kong's retirement services industry are passing their batons.
David Humphreys, CEO at HSBC Provident Fund Services, has retired from the firm after 30 years of service. He intends to launch a second career in Hong Kong.
HSBC has a mandatory retirement age of 53 for its international general managers. It is an unusually young age, a throwback to the days when a Hong Kong or other Asian posting was a hardship for expats, where if the malaria didn't kill you the gin did.
These days, however, 53 is too young to quit an active working life. "I feel I've got at least a dozen more years in me," Humphreys says. He served in Britain, the United States, Thailand, India and Bangladesh (an office he established) before coming to Hong Kong. Here he led HSBC's efforts to launch its Mandatory Provident Fund scheme business, helping the bank establish a dominant market share. Since then he has been working on global pensions strategy for HSBC. He says he cannot talk about the results but some of his recommendations will be implemented over the next year or so.
In the meantime he is playing an active role in the Hong Kong Retirement Schemes Association, which is re-energizing itself to improve education and training.
Meanwhile, the HKRSA's secretary Anthony Griffiths has also announced his retirement. He will be moving back to the United Kingdom at the end of the year. Griffiths has been a fixture in the retirement services community and played an important advisory role in Hong Kong's creation of the Mandatory Provident Fund scheme. He was also head of GML, a consultancy providing advice to companies on retirement matters.
