ING Structured Finance has hired Geff Parsons from its Dutch rival ABN Amro to take up a new role as head of financial engineering, Asia (including Japan and Australia). The appointment highlights ING's efforts to expand its financial engineering product into the region after making progress in Europe.
Parsons will work hand in hand with ING's 52 strong structured, commodity, finance and relationship bankers around the region, offering advice on minimising tax exposure on cross-border transactions.
"While there is not the same volume of opportunities in financial engineering as there is in Europe there are a lot of cross-border issues in Asia that can benefit from eliminating tax inefficiencies," said Parsons.
"For ING, bringing me on board in Asia also completes a global sweep of covering financial engineering. Given that the business is cross-border and frequently cross-continental, this is an important step."
Parsons added that the opportunities across such a large region could entail more personnel being hired: "ING is also hoping to hire another person to work with me on the next one or two quarters, to increase the infrastructure."
The complexity of defining taxation differences and opportunities means that there needs to be a high level of legal and regulatory transparency in the countries. Effectively, this means that a lot of Parsons' work is likely to be concentrated in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Japan.
Parsons had worked at ABN Amro in the same role for over seven years, where he created complex, tax-centred funding solutions for corporates and financial institutions.
He will pursue a similar role at ING, working with the bank's clients and integrating cross-border financial engineering solutions with the bank's existing financial products.
Parsons reports regionally to Basher Buhari, Hong Kong-based head of structured finance, Asia, while functionally he reports to Steven Ng, head of global financial engineering, who is in Amsterdam.
"Geff brings ING structuring expertise and experience which will complement the skills of the existing team and help further enhance our product offering to corporate clients," said Buhari.