Ajay Sharma is the new head of HSBC’s global trade and receivables finance for Asia Pacific, effective from the beginning of 2017.

Sharma replaces Siew Meng Tan who was recently appointed regional head of private banking for the region.

Tan had only been in the position since July 2015, when she replaced Simon Constantinides. She had previously headed the bank’s Thai operations and her appointment was seen as something of a leftfield move by the embattled bank at the time.

Sharma is currently global co-head of international subsidiary banking (ISB) in Hong Kong. He will report to Stuart Tait, regional head of commercial banking, Asia Pacific, and Natalie Blyth, global head of global trade and receivables finance.

He joined the bank from Citi in 2014, where he had most recently headed Asia Pacific corporate finance for the global subsidiaries business. Before that he headed Citi’s corporate bank in Singapore for two years, after holding a number of roles in the transactional banking and loan syndications space in Singapore, London and Mumbai.

“Ajay’s strong leadership of ISB in Asia Pacific has driven collaboration across business lines and significantly strengthened our client proposition in the region,” Tait says.

Blyth says he will “bring a new impetus to our GTRF franchise in Asia Pacific”.

In 2015, HSBC poached another high-profile trade banker from the Citi team, when Sanjay Tandon was named regional head of product and propositions for trade finance. He had been Citi’s long-serving head of trade for Asia.