Singapore is short of senior operations staff, scrabbling for experienced commodity professionals and narrowing the private banking salary gap with Hong Kong.

These are some of the conclusions from the latest salary survey for the region by recruiter Robert Walters.

In Hong Kong, by comparison, the main in-demand recruitment areas continue to be trading compliance, market risk and product control, with a particular shortage of junior and middle-level management talent.

Derivatives professionals are also in short supply, as are experienced corporate banking relationship managers, the report adds.

While Hong Kong salaries generally remain around 35% higher than Singapore, this has narrowed to around 20-25% for relationship managers and sometimes even less within private banking, points out Gary Lai Wai Keat, head of front office recruitment for Robert Walters in Singapore.

“There is now little difference between Singapore and Hong Kong, and that’s been a change we’ve seen over the past two years,” he says.

Where private banking relationship managers in Singapore with more than eight years’ experience earned around S$170k last year (US$120k), it’s now more like S$200k (US$142k), the survey says.

In Hong Kong, by comparison, salaries for front-office relationship managers with a similar level of experience range from HK$650k (US$83k) to HK$1.5m (US$192k), with salaries changing little this year.

“The Singapore market for private bankers is extremely tight. There is a lot of competition, so salaries have gone up,” explains Lai.