Amidst all the bleeding on Wall Street, it’s good to know that Singapore’s finance industry is staying strongly in the black.

Barclays, for example, is expanding its operations here.

Article below is courtesy of the Straits Times.

1,500 new jobs for Barclays here

UK bank to hire highly skilled staff over next few years to run its technology centre
By Grace Ng
Straits Times, Sep 29, 2008

BRITISH banking giant Barclays is going full steam ahead with its plans to hire up to 1,500 highly skilled staff over the next few years in Singapore, undeterred by a credit crunch that has crushed thousands of jobs in the financial sector.

The new hires will be mainly local, the bank said.

The high-end technical jobs will be located at Barclays’ newly set-up technology centre in Singapore, which will support the group’s retail and commercial banking businesses across the globe.

While the financial turmoil is expected to fester for at least another 18 months, Barclays sees this as ‘a good time to expand’, said Mr Frits Seegers, the chief executive of the bank’s global retail and commercial banking.

Noting that the group is still making profits and has not suffered ‘the losses that some other banks have had’, Mr Seegers said: ‘We decided to expand and to invest because we can.

‘Now, prices are substantially lower, so it is a good time to expand. We have a top-notch team...and we can pounce very quickly,’ he said in an interview last Friday.

He was speaking after the opening ceremony of Barclays’ Business Technology Centre at Changi Business Park Central 1.

Barclays has already hired about 110, mainly local, staff, including engineers and information technology professionals. It plans to add another 300 to 400 by the end of next year, before ramping it up to 1,500 in ‘three to five years’ time’, said Mr Seegers.

This headcount is in addition to the 2,500 that Barclays already has for its investment banking and wealth management businesses in Singapore.

Barclays was in the headlines last week for capitalising on its relative financial strength to snap up the American assets of bankrupt Lehman Brothers, which Mr Seegers noted was a ‘terrific deal for Barclays’.

The London-based bank has moved quickly to grow its commercial and retail banking presence outside its home market into growth markets, such as India, Pakistan, Africa and China.

Mr Seegers said ‘it is still quite costly’ to acquire banking franchises in emerging markets, while some buying opportunities had emerged in the United States. Barclays’ commercial and retail banking businesses will continue to grow in emerging markets through organic growth, as well as acquisitions that are ‘priced right’, he said.

Last month, Barclays snapped up a small Indonesian lender Bank Akita and launched its line of retail banking products in Pakistan. It also planted some 1,500 branches across Asia in the past 15 months, said Mr Seegers. This growth is supported by back-end operations, which have been consolidated into three centres in Singapore, Shanghai and the Indian city of Pune.

‘We picked Singapore to be the technology heart for Barclays… We will put the high-value jobs in Singapore, as it offers the quality staff we need,’ said Mr Seegers.

He said the selection process for these jobs had been very rigorous, with each successful applicant undergoing some 16 interviews.

Singapore, Shanghai and Pune are providing technology services to 14 emerging markets and seven Western European counties.

Besides Barclays, financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse and UBS have also located their back-end operations in locations like Harbour Front and Changi, hiring thousands. However, hiring for support and technology functions is said to have slowed down as these banks cut costs and lay off front-end staff, said industry watchers.

Mr Seegers dismissed suggestions that Temasek Holdings’ share in Barclays had an influence on the bank’s decision to hire hundreds more new staff in Singapore.

The veteran banker, who lived in Singapore for six years, noted: ‘We have a good relationship with Singapore, with the Government and with Singaporeans.

‘We chose Singapore because of the quality and dedication of the people here.’

He warned that there would be ‘tough times ahead for the next 18 months’, as the US, United Kingdom and Asia were all experiencing a slowdown.

‘But we have to be where the people are,’ he said. ‘ Asia has a 2.6 billion population and this is where we want to be’.

graceng@sph.com.sg
Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.

This blog post is for the medical students participating in JIPMER’s SPANDAN 2007.

After seeing our banners, you might wonder what Contact Singapore is, and what medical career opportunities you can have in Singapore as a medical student in India.

First, the quick answer:

1. Singapore has a strong (and growing) demand for doctors, and there are many opportunities for employment, training and even research for you in this environment.
2. Contact Singapore is an organisation that promotes working and living in Singapore. Thus, our work includes informing you about these opportunities.
3. SingHealth (doctors.singhealth.com.sg) and the National Healthcare Group (www.lokun.nhg.com.sg) are the largest healthcare establishments in Singapore, running many hospitals and speciality centres. They are actively looking for medical talent around the world, including India. Even if you’re not graduating just yet, do check out their web portals.
4. Medical talent should possess qualifications recognised in Singapore. For basic medical degrees, at this point in time, the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) recognises MBBS degrees from 5 medical colleges in India: JIPMER, AIIMS, Maulana Azad, CMC Vellore and AFMC.

Interested? Read on for the details:

These questions and answers have been summarised from the International Manpower Graduates portal.

1. Are there really opportunities in Singapore?
   Yes, there are opportunities for international medical graduates in Singapore, because our medical tourism/travel pie is growing, and there is also growing domestic demand for healthcare. We’re serious enough about this rising demand to run roadshows for hundreds at Puducherry and Delhi to promote opportunities in Singapore. If that doesn’t convince you, the Singapore Ministry of Health maintains a page listing 10 reasons to work in Singapore as a doctor.
2. OK, I am interested. But how do I get registered to work as a Medical Officer in Singapore when I finally graduate?
   First, you will need to possess a recognised basic medical degree - as mentioned above. Secondly, secure a job with a Singapore healthcare establishment. Your employer will help you with your registration and accreditation procedures, with your certificates and supporting documents. A very helpful flowchart on the whole process can be downloaded here. If you prefer a more expansive technical guide to getting registered in Singapore, go here.
3. What are the career paths available to me in Singapore?
   There are a few main paths open to doctors in Singapore: to go into medical practice (become a specialist or family physician, or progress along the resident physician track), medical research (become a clinical scientist/investigator), or medical education (become an academic).

Key Singapore healthcare industry players:

Interested but forgot to register for our mailing list?

Get in touch with the SPANDAN organisers, who are helping us to collate names and particulars. Or sign up here directly for our mailing list. We will regularly send you news and updates about opportunities in Singapore.

Have questions you feel were not answered? Drop us a comment or email at . However, before that, do take a look at this FAQ page to see if it addresses your queries.

You might not know this, but Singapore attracts more than 400,000 international patients each year seeking all sorts of medical services. There are even plans to grow this to 1 million by 2012. On top all this, Singapore’s own domestic demand for healthcare is rising steadily, due to affluence and a greying population.

These converging trends all mean one thing: a great demand for doctors that is driving our hospitals and healthcare establishments to look worldwide for medical talent.

So in end July, we ran roadshows in Puducherry and New Delhi to spread the news about opportunities in Singapore. And we’re happy that some 250 medical students, doctors and specialists from top colleges like AIIMS, Maulana Azad and JIPMER turned up to hear what we had to say.

HR directors from our healthcare clusters, NHG and SingHealth, gave in-depth presentations at the roadshows on employment, training and research opportunities in the many hospitals and speciality centres in Singapore. We also managed to get Professor Ho Lai Yun, a senior member of our Specialists Accreditation Board (SAB), to share on the career and specialisation paths available for foreign doctors working in Singapore.

True to our expectations, the medical students and professionals had many questions to ask. Topics like qualifications, working hours, wages, opportunities for postgraduate training came up - just to name a few.

All in all, it was definitely a fruitful session for everyone involved. NHG/SingHealth and professionals/students were able to directly engage one another about working in Singapore. For us, the greatest benefit is that we could spread the word that Singapore is an attractive and viable employment destination, a definite alternative to more traditional "hot" locations like the USA and UK.

This is certainly not the last you will hear of us at medical colleges. We’ve already signed up to support JIPMER’s SPANDAN 2007 and reach out to more medical students whom we didn’t have a chance to meet in July. Watch this space for an update!

Hello and a very warm welcome from me, Vimal…….your contact person in Chennai, India.

With the introduction of this blog feature, I look forward to interacting and engaging with my fellow bloggers on issues that can help us in creating a better working and living environment, for everyone…..

So, feel free to get together on this blog and start a healthy and lively information interchange…… Till we connect….cheers..