eFinancialCareers

India and Japan are the most promising markets in Asia, according to Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays Capital, the debt focused investment bank.

Speaking at a conference hosted by the Guild of International Bankers and sponsored by eFinancialCareers.com, Diamond described Japan as a ‘moonshot’, and said it was likely to be the best Asian market in the next three to five years. He said India was a great multinational opportunity and if the country’s financial services regulators were to encourage foreign ownership of domestic banks, Barclays would buy an Indian bank tomorrow.

By comparison, Diamond said the Chinese market was impressive, but that in the absence of multinational corporates it was difficult to make money there. Nevertheless, Barclays Capital opened an office in Taipei last year and plans to open a Shanghai office in 2006.

Diamond’s reticence about China runs contrary to international rivals which are eager to penetrate China’s equity and M&A markets. Last month, for example, UBS finalized an agreement to invest $500m in a 1.6% stake in Bank of China as part of a strategic alliance covering investment banking and securities products.

According to Thomson Financial, the information provider, debt issuance in China (not including Hong Kong) was $4.1bn in year to date 2005, down from $6.0 billion in the same period last year. Indian debt issuance rose 24% during the same period to $9.7bn, and Japanese debt issuance rose 16% to $133bn.

After adding thousands of staff in the UK and US markets in recent years, future hiring under Diamond’s ‘Alpha Plan’ to double the size of the business in the next four years, is likely to focus on Asia. 1,300 of the bank’s 8,000 staff are currently based on the continent, and 25% of this year’s graduate intake were from the Asia Pacific region.

Increased hiring may put pressure on an already strained financial services talent pool. Mike Brennan, global managing director of Alexander Mann Financial Markets, said the Asian market is long on opportunities and short on talent: “There is a talent squeeze across Asia. It is more pronounced in Japan than anywhere in Asia Pacific.” Demand is particularly high for people to work in derivative-related roles, said Brennan.