On the crossroad of Caoxi Road N. and Nandan Road, a batch of overseas banks including Standard Chartered, Hang Seng Bank, First Sino Bank and Bank of East Asia, fight for attention.

In January, Standard Chartered opened its biggest outlet in eastern China for priority banking, or high-end client investment services, near Xujiahui.

High on the list of skills required to work at an overseas bank is foreign languages, Ge said.

English helps

Chinese in their early 30s happily greeted Katherine Tsang, chief executive officer of Standard Chartered Bank China, and introduced themselves with their English names at the opening of the Xujiahui branch.

"People from domestic banks who have ample branch expansion experience are also highly desired by overseas lenders," said Ge.

The demand for people with small- and medium-sized business experience also looks good on resumes.

"Most candidates see an opportunity to develop their careers as the main attraction of working at overseas banks," said Ge.

It is expected that employees working for overseas banks will top 16,910 by 2008, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Nonetheless, there are also some unwritten rules in the industry. Overseas banks are reluctant to grab too much talent from domestic partners to avoid potential conflicts.

HSBC, Citigroup and Standard Chartered have purchased strategic stakes in domestic lenders as part of a two-pronged approach to expansion on the Chinese mainland that complements organic growth plans. The last thing they want to do is cause problems with a domestic partner.

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