The HKMA operates a two-year Manager Trainee (MT) Programme. Our aim is to prepare young adults who are interested in central banking work to become our future key management staff and to contribute to the financial stability and prosperity of Hong Kong.
An MT will undergo on-the-job training in two to three different departments in order to gain an understanding of the important role the HKMA plays in maintaining Hong Kong’s monetary and financial stability.
On completion of the Programme with satisfactory performance, an MT will be appointed as a Manager.
No formal work experience required. Final-year students or recent graduates of local and overseas universities are welcome to apply.
Holder of a Bachelor’s degree from any discipline with very strong academic results. Business / Finance / Economics major a plus.
Broad general knowledge, high versatility and flexibility, great attention to details, good logical and critical thinking, a sharp and analytical mind.
Excellent command of English and Chinese, strong presentation and communication skills, good Putonghua an advantage.
A good team player, able to work with others to achieve the objectives.
Willing to accept challenges, proactive, interested in and aspired to work in the central banking field.
Monthly fixed pay at HK$49,000+ plus a lump-sum pay upon Programme completion.
If you ask me what defines the HKMA – I would say the people without thinking for more than a second.
As an engineering graduate, I received a lot of guidance, care and mentoring from seniors and colleagues. Everyone here is very willing to teach and answer my (sometimes somewhat simple) questions.
MTs are expected to be versatile when rotating across departments. I worked with colleagues who are extremely experienced in their fields and learnt from their expertise. This enabled me to immerse myself into the diverse set of work under the HKMA’s mandate – from developing central bank digital currencies to managing Hong Kong’s Exchange Fund.
To me, the career at the HKMA is a treasure chest of opportunities. Take two interesting projects that I worked on as examples. While ESG is gaining ground in recent years, I had the honour of taking part in developing and promoting the Alliance for Green Commercial Banks in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation.
Another meaningful project that I have been involved in is the Focused Review on Incentive Systems of Front Offices in Retail Banks, which forms part of the Bank Culture Reform in promoting sound culture in the banking sector. While the tasks that these two projects entail are fundamentally different, one may perceive it as a challenge to adapt.
Every coin has two sides, all these challenges turned out to be a golden opportunity for me to steepen my learning curve, to hone my horizontal skills in various aspects, and more importantly, to make impacts!
The HKMA is an organisation that comes into my mind long before graduation – it is very different and fulfilling to be part of an institution that makes rules and the city’s entire banking industry adheres to it. My work here is very intellectually stimulating, interesting and impactful, and we take pride in contributing to the public good.
As MTs, we have the opportunities to explore rich and diverse possibilities within this large and complex organisation, be it traditional banking departments or teams that work on new initiatives, such as green finance, digitalisation and fintech. All of these make my experience at the HKMA unique and fulfilling.
Two key elements of the programme are the diverse experience and job satisfaction from serving the public. I have helped utilise granular data to enhance supervision of bank mortgage lendings in Hong Kong, and assisted senior executives' participation in the Financial Stability Board (FSB) meetings with other central bank governors and securities regulators.
Although I specialised in statistics at the university with little formal education in economics, I am grateful to have supportive colleagues guiding me along the way. This is particularly the case for the FSB meeting preparations, where discussion topics are very broad and can cover policy works ranging from international financial stability, crypto-assets, climate change, to non-bank financial intermediation.
I joined the HKMA because of the unparalleled insights I can gain. The HKMA is Hong Kong's central banking institution, so the nature of its work is unique and nowhere else to be found.
For me, the best part of the MT programme is that I can rotate between different departments. My postings in different teams offer me unique insights into different parts of Hong Kong's financial and monetary system, which enable me to gradually learn more about how the system functions as a whole. It is just like putting puzzle pieces together one by one and getting to learn more about how the big picture looks like.
The four major functions of the HKMA are markedly distinct, and the diverse nature of work at each department presents both opportunities and challenges. Through job rotations across different departments during the Manager Trainee programme, I have the opportunity to take on vastly different roles, which has allowed me to acquire different perspectives and experiences. I am expected to quickly adapt to different postings by flexibly picking up the different skillsets and subject matter knowledge, which is stimulating but, at times, challenging. Nonetheless, being able to proactively contribute to the projects I am assigned to in each rotation provides great satisfaction.
HKMA-related Organisation(s)