Asia Pacific is one of four core regions for RBS, with GBM businesses operating out of four key hubs – Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney and a footprint across 11 countries in the region.

Samir Atassi is named as the new head of institutional sales for Asia (ex Japan). Mr Atassi joins RBS from Merrill Lynch in London. He will be part of the institutional coverage, research & strategy (ICRS) global management team. He will play a pivotal role in helping RBS build market leading capabilities in the solutions sales space to financial institutions.

Lee Knight joins as regional head of G11, delta and credit trading and short term markets and financing trading. Mr Knight will move to Singapore in his current regional capacity with the additional responsibility of short term markets and financing trading.

Arun Khurana is appointed as regional head of solutions sales and corporate risk solutions Singapore. Mr Khurana, previously based in RBS India, has relocated to Singapore and will play a key role in the delivery of risk management products, namely FX, rates, credit and equities and commodities to RBS’ targeted clients in the region.

Sim Buck Khim and Steve Chen join as senior bankers in the banking team. Mr. Sim joins RBS from SPI (Australia) Assets where he was head of treasury. In his new role, Mr Sim will be responsible for strengthening relationships with government-linked clients, in particular in the area of debt capital markets.

He comes with 13 years of banking experience and has held senior positions in the financial sector including Head of Debt Capital Markets and Corporate Coverage Group for Deutsche Bank Singapore.

Mr Chen, country executive and head of GBM for Vietnam, will relocate to Singapore to look after key clients within the food & agriculture and commodities sectors as well as select offshore clients.

Muhammad Aurangzeb, head of GBM for South East Asia and Pakistan, said: “With Asia identified as one of the major growth economies for our institutional client business, the new additions to the Singapore office will serve to strengthen our GBM team and help facilitate and accelerate business expansion in the region. They will be playing an important role in helping RBS build a dominant position in our chosen products and markets and cement relationships with our key clients.”