HSBC Lands Veteran Asian Banking Head Matthew Kirkby

HSBC has landed Matthew Kirkby, who joins the lender as its newest head of corporate business for commercial banking in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, according to a recent report from Finance Asia.

Mr. Kirkby joins HSBC from Malaysia’s CIMB – he was one of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s most tenured bankers, who joined CIMB after an acquisition of RBS’s cash equities, equity capital markets, and corporate finance businesses in the APAC region.

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Subsequently, Mr. Kirkby, who served as the APAC head of global banking and global head of corporate finance at RBS, moved into the role of co-head of investment banking for APAC at CIMB.

CIMB has since scaled back portions of its global business, whilst cutting costs by upwards of 30% in 2015 across its APAC investment banking and equities divisions, culminating in the closure of offices in Sydney and Melbourne.

According to CIMB’s acting CEO, Zafrul Abdul Aziz, in a recent statement on the present state of the company, “We have taken a long hard look at our Asia-Pacific investment banking business. The realities of today’s capital markets and the absence of sufficient flows have directly contributed to this decision.”

This consequently paved the way for Mr. Kirkby’s ascension into his new role at HSBC. As its newest commercial banking head, he will be based out of Hong Kong, where he will report to Noel Quinn, HSBC’s regional head of commercial banking – APAC and Joel Van Dusen, global head of large corporates for commercial banking.