Scotiabank cuts Asia capital-markets jobs in shift to Americas

Bank of Nova Scotia’s capital-markets unit is cutting some jobs in Asia and offering other staff members retention and relocation packages as the bank narrows its focus on regions closer to home.

The move is part of the bank’s push to concentrate on North and South America, and its global banking and markets division in the Asia-Pacific region will focus on distributing its Americas products and serving global clients, spokeswoman Heather Armstrong said in an emailed statement. The Toronto-based bank, Canada’s third-largest lender by total assets, declined to say how many workers are affected by the moves.

“The bank will continue to have a presence in Asia Pacific, including Hong Kong,” Armstrong said in the statement. “This decision is not a reflection on the current market environment or our staff.”

Scotiabank’s global banking and markets division has 12 offices across Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, according to the unit’s website. The division had 2,205 employees globally as of fiscal third quarter, including 1,131 outside of Canada. The bank didn’t say how many of those workers are in Asia.

Fiscal-third quarter revenue in the global banking and markets unit fell 8.1% from a year earlier, to C$1.15 billion ($846 million), amid drops in underwriting and advisory fees and trading revenue.

Chief Executive Officer Brian Porter, who is stepping down in January, has spent much of his tenure overhauling Scotiabank’s international-banking business to focus on large Latin America markets such as Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia, while exiting places such as South Korea, Dubai and Thailand.

Shaken by China’s crackdown on political dissent and stringent Covid-19 curbs, Hong Kong residents have been leaving the city in an exodus that’s shrinking the city’s workforce, dimming its economic outlook and threatening its status as a global financial hub.

—Bloomberg