Westpac Institutional Bank, the corporate banking division of Australia’s third largest bank, has made a series of senior executive appointments in Asia, including the hiring of David Koh from J.P. Morgan’s treasury and securities services.
Koh will be based in Singapore and carry the title of head of corporate and institutional banking in Asia. He will report to the bank’s Asia general manager Bala Swaminathan, as well as the general manager of corporate and institutional banking Andrew McDonald.
At the same time, Westpac has hired two other senior executives from Deutsche Bank: Paul Gardner who becomes Westpac’s global head of its structured commodity finance business; and Andrew Billing who takes the title of Asia head of institutional FX sales. At Deutsche Bank, Gardner was most recently regional head of structured trade and export finance, and Billing was head of FX sales for the institutional client group in Australasia.
Commenting on Koh’s appointment, Swaminathan says: “David has lived and worked in China, the US, the Middle East and the UK. His breadth of regional expertise includes leading large teams across corporate relationship banking, transactional, trade, treasury and security services.”
Koh has almost 22 years of global and regional experience in transaction and corporate banking. He joined J.P. Morgan in October 2011, where he reported to Tom DuCharme, the US bank’s chief executive for Asia-Pacific treasury and securities services.
Prior to that he spent four years at Deutsche Bank where he was head of global transaction banking for China and head of trade finance, cash management, corporates for Greater China. He also worked for HSBC for 15 years in a variety of management roles in the US, the UK, the Middle East, China, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The moves signal a boost in Westpac’s interest in Asia, with the bank lifting its planned investment in the region. While Westpac has been operating in Asia for 40 years, it has largely remained an Australian and New Zealand business.
But in a recent interview with The Australian newspaper, chief executive Gail Kelly said she has set a target to grow revenues from the region to A$700 million ($685 million) by 2017, from A$100 million presently. Kelly told the newspaper that Asia represented “a rapid growth opportunity”, but conceded it would remain a small part of the group, which has annual revenues of about A$18 billion.
