Westpac is increasing its presence in Hong Kong with new appointments of senior executives.

The appointments to the Hong Kong branch include Alex Tam, who will lead the corporate and institutional banking team. He joins Westpac from HSBC where he gained more than 20 years’ experience including 15 in Hong Kong. In his previous role of regional head of business development, Asia Pacific, global trade and receivables finance at HSBC, Tam led a team across 19 markets in the Asia Pacific region.

Steven Yu also joins the bank and will have overall responsibility for trade sales in north Asia, including Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. Yu joins the bank from Deutsche Bank, where his most recent position was head of trade finance and cash management corporates in Hong Kong.

Westpac’s head of greater China, Andrew Whitford, moves from Shanghai to take on responsibility for the Hong Kong branch in addition to his existing responsibilities. Finally, Martin Goodacre relocated from Singapore to Hong Kong last year to take up the new role of head of financial markets.

“These appointments reflect our continued commitment to Asia. Greater China is a major component of Westpac’s Asia growth strategy and Hong Kong is a key part in this,” says Bala Swaminathan, general manager, Westpac Asia.

The moves follow the recent expansion of Westpac’s Hong Kong office. Westpac was granted market maker status to directly trade Chinese renminbi and Australian dollars in 2013.