Korean for Hong Kong BB

I've heard hong kong bank divisions want fluent mandarin speakers for just about everyone.

But since Hong Kong is Asia's main office other than Japan, and I know Korean deals are originated out of Hong Kong, wouldn't they also want Korean speakers?

Have you heard anyone who speaks just Korean and English and is working in Hong Kong?

Would someone be limited in terms of exit opportunities for Asia if they only spoke Korean and English?

 
Best Response

No it is not. From my experience networking and searching up Korean professionals in HK most of them speak Korean and English. I know that theres at least 4 MDs in Blackstone in HK who are Korean and I don't think they speak Chinese at all. Also, the current head of Asia-Pacific I believe for UBS is Korean and it doesn't say that he speaks Chinese.

Hope it helps.

 

What level within the bank are you talking about? I know a few korean bankers within JPM HK that don't speak any chinese.VP level.

Don't know about exit opps, but the lack of chinese skills will surely limit progress within mainland China and PEs based in China (common sense).

You could try Samsung Securities, the bank is Korean but nobody speaks Korean inside, too bad they only fired about 100 people. IB is sort of OK i heard.

 
HarvardOrBust:
There are very rare instances when a HK office will take a non-Mandarin speaker, but usually this happens when they do an internal transfer (ex. trader from Barclays NY to HK). Is it a priority that you be in HK?

What are you talking about? I interned on the BarCap HK trading floor last summer and I would say over 50% of the sales/traders don't speak Mandarin, and this is true at all levels (less so at the junior level)

 

most of the hk people don't speak mandarian, a small part of em can speak but with a strong cantonese accent, weired enough that even chinese ppl couldn't understand. Since you fluent in english, i think there must be certain places where the people have the same background like u, i.e. GS, MS.. I always thought there are a lot of native english speakers there, correct me if i was wrong. Im a local hk person

I create nothing, I own. -Gordon Gekko
 

thank you for all the responses! so I would only face little if any discrimination in the S&T application process? Why is it that S&T tend to have numerous non-mandarin speakers- is it because they tend to cater to western institutional clients?

 

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