What are the conditions for becoming bank president? This question may have been a little mysterious before. However, in recent years, more and more banks have begun to publicly select talents for management positions such as president and vice president. What are the conditions for becoming a bank president? Will more banks openly select and hire presidents in the future?
the two banks publicly selected presidents
On February 7, the official wechat of A-share listed bank Bank Of Changsha Co.Ltd(601577) announced that the CPC Changsha Municipal Committee decided to select a president of Bank Of Changsha Co.Ltd(601577) for nationwide competition. Bank Of Changsha Co.Ltd(601577) said that the selection is to “further expand the vision of selection and employment, optimize and improve the enterprise team structure, and promote the all-round and healthy development of the enterprise”.
Previously, Hengshui bank also issued an announcement on selection and employment on December 31, 2021, selecting and employing two senior executives of the head office for the society, including a president and a vice president in charge of the company’s business line. Hengshui bank also said that the public recruitment is “to further strengthen the construction of the leading group of Hengshui bank, improve the level of operation and management, and promote the healthy and rapid development of Hengshui bank”.
In recent years, banks have begun to publicly select and hire presidents and other senior executives, including some listed banks. For example, in April 2020, Bank of Tianjin, a Hong Kong listed bank, issued an announcement to publicly select professional managers, including one president and three vice presidents; In February 2021, Bohai bank, also an H-share listed bank, publicly selected one president and five vice presidents.
China Singapore Jingwei combed and found that most of the banks publicly selected in recent years are small and medium-sized banks. According to Wang Jianhui, a senior banking analyst, large banks are more controlled by state-owned assets, and their senior management candidates are mainly affected by the controlling shareholders. On this premise, the necessity and operation space for their public selection and employment of senior managers are relatively limited. In addition, under the condition of relatively perfect internal training mechanism, the bank has sufficient talent reserve after years of accumulation.
In contrast to small and medium-sized banks, Wang Jianhui believes that many small and medium-sized banks are newly established or reorganized later. Although most of them are also controlled by state-owned assets, their comprehensive management ability is relatively weak, there is little room for them to choose talents, and there are not many human resources that can be provided in the process of talent selection of banks. Moreover, small and medium-sized banks have limited time to establish their own institutions and lack rich experience in all areas. Therefore, they need to be supplemented by market channels.
However, pan Helin, executive director of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Central South University of economics and law, pointed out in an interview with China Singapore Jingwei that public selection is rare, which depends on the demands of banks in selecting governors. For example, the current banking industry attaches great importance to the resources attached to talents. Through open selection, the president with financial resources can be attracted to join. This is indeed an idea. Starting from performance, it can improve bank performance.
Pan Helin further stressed that at present, this is still not a common phenomenon, because in general, the president does not just have resources. If the main task of the bank president is to coordinate the cooperation of multiple departments, the bank still needs to be promoted internally to coordinate the relations between various departments, and there are contacts after all. He believes that the increase in open selection may objectively indicate that the current bank is gradually moving towards a performance led business model.
what requirements does the president need to meet?
Of course, many people are concerned about what abilities and conditions need to be met to become a bank president. By combing the bank announcements, it is not difficult to find that their basic requirements include good ideological and political quality and professional quality, professional knowledge necessary for duty performance, good psychological quality and physical conditions for normal duty performance.
In addition to these basic conditions, the bank also puts forward some other requirements for candidates, such as professional experience, job requirements, age, education, employment records, etc.
Among them, the most important is professional experience. For example, Hengshui bank requires the president to have more than 10 years of financial work or more than 14 years of relevant economic work (including more than 7 years of financial work). While Bank Of Changsha Co.Ltd(601577) , Bank of Tianjin and Bohai bank all require to be engaged in financial work for more than 8 years or relevant economic work for more than 12 years (including financial work for more than 4 years).
In addition, many banks also put forward requirements for the positions held by candidates. Bank Of Changsha Co.Ltd(601577) it is required to serve as the head of the main business departments of provincial branches of state-owned commercial banks and postal savings banks, the president of prefectural and municipal branches, and the head of the main business departments and the president of first-class branches of national joint-stock commercial banks, Or senior management and above positions in the head office of urban commercial banks with total assets of about 500 billion at the end of 2021 (working time is calculated to January 30, 2022) for more than 3 years.
Hengshui bank is required to hold the position of middle-level deputy and above (including equivalent positions) in provincial branches of large state-owned commercial banks, or the position of middle-level deputy and above (including equivalent positions) in national joint-stock commercial banks, or the position of vice president and above (including equivalent positions) in the head office of urban commercial banks for more than 2 years.
It is worth noting that in addition to the requirements of financial work or relevant economic work experience, the selection and employment conditions also put forward certain requirements for age.
For the age of the president, Bank Of Changsha Co.Ltd(601577) is required to be born after January 30, 1971, that is, no more than 51 years old. Hengshui bank requires the age to be under 50. Both Bohai bank and Bank of Tianjin require the age to be no more than 53, and those who are particularly excellent can be relaxed to 55.
Wang Jianhui told Zhongxin Jingwei that the financial industry has certain requirements for working time. After experiencing at least one complete industry cycle, the candidate’s experience and all aspects can be considered relatively mature. At the same time, in a relatively mature age, all aspects of management experience and psychological state are relatively stable, so it is relatively easy to integrate into the new team. Therefore, this age group is also the golden age group for bank executives. Being too young and too old have their own disadvantages.
Will open recruitment become the mainstream?
It is worth mentioning that although the current public selection of presidents and some core executives have begun to appear in small and medium-sized banks, it is still rare in large state-owned banks and national joint-stock banks. At present, most banks still select senior executives in the way of internal promotion and inter-bank transfer.
Wang Jianhui believes that the market-oriented channel is the inevitable product of the market-oriented transformation of enterprises. In the future, more banks, even some large and medium-sized banks, will join the ranks of market-oriented talent selection and employment.
“In the context of more and more professional bank management, it does provide more choices for many professional managers.” Wang Jianhui said that with the increase of listed banks in the future, the market-oriented recruitment of listed companies is also a relatively transparent practice and will be recognized by investors. From this perspective, the public recruitment will gradually increase in the future.
In Pan Helin’s view, the situation of public recruitment will increase in the future, but it can not become the dominant model. “The bank’s internal training mechanism is still the mainstream. On the one hand, the internal training of talents is more reliable. On the other hand, it can stabilize people’s hearts and prevent brain drain. A long-term stable talent team is meaningful for the bank to improve the efficiency of coordination.”
Yu Baicheng, President of zero one research institute, pointed out to Zhongxin Jingwei that in recent years, the development stage of the banking industry guided by scale growth is changing into a refined development stage focusing on customers and relying on technology driven and model change. Especially after the epidemic, the development of bank digital transformation has accelerated. In this process, the Matthew effect of the industry is more obvious. In the process of industry transformation, small and medium-sized banks face greater challenges because of relatively few human resources, especially for digitization, management innovation and compound talents.
Yu Baicheng said that by introducing high-quality management talents and driving from top to bottom, it is an important step for small and medium-sized banks to carry out business transformation. Professional managers are the backbone talents specializing in the senior management of enterprises, with good moral character, professional quality and professional ability. For banks, the introduction of professional managers from the outside can break some of the original business inertia constraints, bring advanced management concepts and business models, and better implement strategic objectives. Of course, in the process of transformation, professional managers also need to integrate into the local environment in combination with the company’s original business path.
