The sought-after Asian jobs that Standard Chartered is still hiring for during its ‘freeze’

Standard Chartered announced on 30 March that it was freezing external and internal hiring for two months in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, as is typically the case with banks on a recruitment hiatus, Stan Chart still has a few roles on its careers site – presumably ones deemed most crucial to its operations. While some have been posted online after 30 March, they were likely approved before that date.

Many of the surviving Stan Chart jobs are in technology, a critical function to the smooth running of a bank during a crisis. Tech staff who leave tend to be urgently replaced.

In Hong Kong, where Stan Chart is a note-issuing bank, there are now a mere 13 experienced-level vacancies up for grabs. While there are 63 in Singapore, Stan Chart typically has more than 300 openings there.

Which type of Stan Chart jobs can you still apply for? Most of the firm’s Hong Kong openings are in its new virtual bank, Mox.

Over the past 12 months, Stan Chart has been among the most aggressive recruiters in Hong Kong’s new digital banking sector, which also includes seven other players. And in the run up to its launch later this year, Mox is continuing to recruit for technology and governance roles, including a head of backend engineering, a frontend developer, and a cyber risk assurance lead. Two of Mox’s jobs, a solution architect and a quality engineer, were posted earlier today.

Interestingly, about half of Stan Chart’s Singapore vacancies have a security focus. There are, for example, several senior cyber security jobs on offer, which highlights the increased importance of the function as the Covid-19 pandemic boosts customer traffic to banks’ digital platforms. Earlier today, for example, Stan Chart posted an opening for a business information and cyber security risk manager for digital channels and digital analytics in its corporate, commercial and institutional banking division.

Cloud security appears to be a particular priority for Stan Chart in Singapore. Vacancies in this field include: principal cloud security consultant; lead, threat intelligence, cloud security services; senior security specialist, cloud and container security; and principal cloud security consultant.

Separately, there are also a few roles at SC Ventures, the bank’s fintech innovation arm, and a number of relationship manager jobs within wealth management, a comparatively buoyant sector for hiring generally in Singapore.

And if a bank is looking for an AI-focused quantitative engineer (Stan Chart in Singapore is) it probably make sense to exclude it from a hiring freeze. Talent in this area is in high demand and short supply, so not advertising a role could mean losing candidates to competitors. Stan Chart wants an AI expert to make its “financial markets programs faster”.

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