There was a new boost for Warsaw’s burgeoning international banking sector on June 13 when Standard Chartered announced plans to set up operations in the city. The office in the Polish capital, which will employ 750 people, will support the bank’s push to win more clients in Europe and North America.
The new office, which is expected to open in September, will house a range of operations, including technology and finance services, cyber security, as well as traditional banking activities.
The unit – which joins a network of similarly structured hubs in China, India and Malaysia – will be run by Rowena Everson, who has been promoted to chief executive of Standard Chartered Global Business Services Poland from her current role as a managing director and head of business support, risk and governance for Europe based in London.
Standard Chartered chose Warsaw after considering several other cities for its new office, including Prague, Budapest and Krakow. “What we saw when we visited Poland was a very good demographic with lots of young, well-educated people,” the bank’s global head of shared service centres Matthew Norris told the FT. “It reminded us of what we saw in India 20 years ago when it was going into business process outsourcing.”
Standard Chartered’s announcement follows that of HSBC – the world’s seventh largest bank by total assets and the largest in Europe – which earlier this year launched a business desk in Warsaw to facilitate trade and investment flows between China and the growing economies of central and eastern Europe.
