(22 April 2021 – Singapore) Wells Fargo, America’s fourth-largest bank by assets, has been quietly working on a plan to move its Asian regional hub from Hong Kong to Singapore as part of wider restructuring efforts.
According to the FT, the move comes as the bank is drastically cutting costs and during a tumultuous time for Hong Kong, where Chinese authorities introduced a national security law last year to counter persistent anti-government protests.
Over the past few months Wells Fargo has slowly made a number of senior executives in Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia redundant. The lender has scaled back in other locations in the region and is in the process of closing its offices in Thailand, Bangladesh and the Philippines.