Back in August, HSBC 's Hong Kong contingent lost one of its top technologists, when John Hsu, chief information officer of Asia Pacific, became group CTO of the HKEX exchange. Since then, the bank's been busy filling the gap, and has done so by moving multiple senior technologists from abroad into the country. Since Hsu's departure, the interim Asia Pacific CIO has been Kai Yang, formerly Asia Pacific chief data officer and CIO for group data technology. Insiders tell us that Hsu's full time replacement been lined-up in the form of James Elwes; former COO of HSBC Qatar and current COO of HSBC Indonesia. Elwes' appointment is unusual, but perhaps indicative of the attitude towards tech in banking right now. Most banks are attempting to save money in their technology functions, and the preferred candidate to lead, at least for HSBC, seems to be someone more business minded.