Hong Kong’s role in the yuan’s ongoing journey to achieve global prominence

As a finance professional working in Hong Kong for the past two decades, John Tan Ming-kiu never dreamed he would end up dealing with Beijing regulators, nurture a Taiwanese banking franchise, or see the dim sum bond market kick off.

But the changes heralded by Hong Kong’s handover to Chinese rule in 1997 saw his working life take many unexpected turns.

Tan, currently managing director of Greater China and north Asia head of financial markets at Standard Chartered Bank, started out trading US and Hong Kong dollars in the currency and derivatives markets, which were considered among the city’s main financial businesses prior to the handover.

But things started to change when China began allowing foreign banks to incorporate on the mainland and they actively recruited Hong Kong talent to develop its fledging capital markets. The yuan was embarking on an upward trajectory that would last for the next eight years.

When Tan became head of financial markets at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai, moving his whole family to China in 2007, he got his first taste of the yuan business. The number of Hong Kong residents whose employers required them to move to the mainland in their existing role more than doubled from 97,300 in 1995 to 176,300 by 2001, and then grew to 228,900 by 2005, according to data from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department.

“If you were in finance in Asia, this would be the golden 10 years to be in the industry and to be involved with the rise of China,” Tan said.