Standard Chartered opened a new global banking service centre in Warsaw on Otcober 11, its first and only global banking service centre in the western hemisphere. The unit joins a network of similarly structured hubs in China, India and Malaysia.
The new Warsaw facility will focus on financial crime compliance, human resources, cybersecurity, and banking operations. At present, over 80 staff are employed at the centre, with management expecting this to climb to 150 by the end of 2018.
“As the Bank increases its focus on clients based in Europe and the Americas, we believe it has become essential to create a western hub that can support them fully in a more beneficial time zone,” explained Stephen Sheridan, Standard Chartered’s COO for Europe and the Americas.
“We felt that Poland has one of the best talent pools in Europe at the moment,” he added. “Warsaw can draw from the whole of Poland, but it also has a deeper financial service pool compared to some of the other locations within Poland.”
Rowena Everson CEO of the Polish operation added: “the choice of Warsaw was a mix of logistics and talent. The city has good transport links, and the development of our centre is based on recruitment from a rich, local base of talent.”
“We are building a talent acquisition hub in our Polish office, and we are hiring HR people here who will help us acquire talent in other markets, in the western region. We have also begun hiring our cyber security teams,” added Ms Everson. “Warsaw is a resilient market in terms of the talent pool; even our non-Polish hires were already based here, which further supports our choice for setting up in the city.”
Supporting a steady stream of talent in the future – including from outside Poland – is a key point on the bank’s agenda.
“While meeting ministers and government agencies in Poland, we were keen to ensure that they were committed to keeping the borders open to talent from other areas,” said Mr Sheridan.
