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SCMP Reporter

THE latest addition to Hongkong Bank's ranks of executive directors is reluctant to dwell on the growing influence he wields in the territory, but admits he has been on the fast track within the bank for some time.

  From this Wednesday, Vincent Cheng Hoi-chuen, the highest-ranking Chinese executive within Hongkong Bank, will be an executive director of the bank, reporting directly to the chairman, John Gray.

   He dismisses suggestions that he is an example of localisation policy within the bank. The evidence tends to support him - while the civil service in the past few months has been scrambling to find local Chinese to fill the top spots ahead of 1997, Mr Cheng's career at Hongkong Bank over the past 17 years has been a series of steady promotions.

  His rapid ascendancy started when he was appointed the bank's chief financial officer last November.

  He then became the only Chinese member of Hongkong Bank's top 25 executive elite in June this year, when he was appointed general manager.

  Mr Cheng made it clear earlier this year after he joined the top echelon of the bank that merit had everything to do with the appointment, and race had nothing to do with it.

  'Ethnicity has never been an issue. It has never occurred to me that this is a problem,' he said.

  'I have never been treated differently. I am just a member of a team, all of whom have different backgrounds . . . there is no difference.

  'As a banking executive I am proud of my position, but not simply because I am Chinese.'   When he joined Hongkong Bank in 1978, he was put to work in the group finances department, but was then moved to group planning between 1982 and 1985.

  His talents were noticed and he was appointed chief economist in 1986, and was then seconded to the Hong Kong Government from 1989 to 1991 to work in the Central Policy Unit.

  He followed that with a stint as senior manager of economic and strategic research at the bank in 1992. In March 1995, he became managing director of Lombard General Insurance and a director of Carlingford Lombard Holdings, and the following month he became managing director of Hang Seng Bank.

  On top of that, he has been chairman of Carlingford Insurance since last October.

  Outside Hongkong Bank, his career in public affairs has been going relentlessly upwards.

  He was an independent Legislative Councillor from 1991 to 1995, has been awarded the Order of the British Empire and is a Justice of the Peace.

  He was offered a seat in the inner cabinet of Governor Chris Patten after he quit the Legislative Council in the summer, and is now a serving member of the Executive Council.

  Mr Cheng also is a Hong Kong affairs adviser to China, a member of the Government's Economic Advisory Committee and its Industry and Technology Development Council, and is a non-executive director of the Securities and Futures Commission.

  With credentials like these, he is in a good position to exert the same influence after 1997 that he exerts in the public arena now. As executive director, he is responsible for developing plans for the bank's overall strategic direction, and for maintaining a variety of institutional relationships in the countries in which the bank operates. The strategic direction brief encompasses all of Asia, not just China.

  'I believe this bank can make a lot of difference in Asia, because it's a growth region,' he said.

  But he conceded that China was an obvious priority. 'Obviously, China is an important area and we have to expand our operations there. I go to China regularly as a Hong Kong Affairs adviser. I also go there to look at the operations of the bank.' Hongkong Bank, he said, was the first foreign bank to gain a full branch licence in Beijing.

  Last Thursday, the People's Construction Bank of China signed a HK$1.2 billion floating-rate note that HSBC Markets helped arrange.

  'We would want to bring other Chinese banks to market,' he said. 'This also helps Hong Kong to remain a major financial centre. I don't think it would be good for Hong Kong if China were to go elsewhere to raise capital.'   Hongkong Bank is now gunning for more branches and representative offices in China, mindful of the queue forming of US investment banks and large European commercial banks seeking a foothold on the mainland.

   He said the bank was keeping an eye on China's 'diaspora', those Chinese who fanned out across the world over the last century or so, and were now affluent and entrenched in Europe, North America and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region.

  'This is an area of great potential,' he said. 'When I go overseas, I always talk to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce associations, whether I'm in Toronto or New York.' 



Cheng reaps fruits of long labour