Under pressure from, a challenging business environment, Hong Kong’s largest independent local bank, The Bank of East Asia, is about to take the knife to a significant part of its business.
Following a thorough review of its businesses and operations in Hong Kong, The Bank of East Asia (BEA) is implementing what the bank calls a «realignment exercise» to enhance operating efficiency.
Staff Cull
The complete retail business of the bank’s East Asia Securities (EAS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of BEA, will close by July 8 2016.
The EAS business includes 22 retail outlets throughout Hong Kong. The closure will result in approximately 180 redundancies, accounting for almost 4 percent of the Bank’s total headcount in Hong Kong.
Conventional Trading Unprofitable
Due to the increasing popularity of electronic and phone trading, which currently facilitates over 90 percent of EAS’s transactions, maintaining retail outlets to provide counter trading services has become very costly for EAS.
In an effort to contain operating costs against the backdrop of a challenging business environment, the Bank has also conducted a series of reviews of its operations with a view to streamlining workflows through various means, including process reengineering and automation.
