NAB closes Hong Kong office, follows Westpac out
afr.comNational Australia Bank will shut down its office in Hong Kong after deciding that Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo are the preferred regional centres to support its institutional banking clients in Asia.
NAB has around 50 staff in Hong Kong, who work in an office in Wan Chai. They were notified of the surprise decision at a meeting on Wednesday. NAB said it is too early to say how many would be made redundant, or whether they would be offered roles in its other regional offices.
NAB’s decision to exit Hong Kong follows hot on the heels of Westpac, which shuttered its branch there in June. Westpac’s Asian offices are now in Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing.
NAB and Westpac have closed branches in Hong Kong this year, leaving CBA and ANZ as the two Aussie banks with a presence there. iStock
Commonwealth Bank continues to maintain a Hong Kong presence, while ANZ is the largest Australian bank in the country: ANZ has 300 staff in Hong Kong. ANZ maintains the strongest footprint in Asia among the big four, with 300 bankers in China and 1000 in Singapore.
The NAB Hong Kong office will be run off over the next 18 months, with a full closure slated for early 2025.
It has supported large Australian and Asian companies operating in the region with loans and trade finance. It has also run a markets trading desk, which helps manage the bank’s Treasury operations. All operations will be consolidated into NAB branches in China, Singapore and Japan.
“The difficult decision to close our Hong Kong office has not been taken lightly,” Krista Baetens, a NAB executive in Asia, said in a statement to The Australian Financial Review.
“The decision was made following a thorough assessment of our strategy and reflects our ambition to align our
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