Recruiting in China

China's top ride-hailing app Didi Kuaidi and leading private bank China Merchants Bank (CMB) on Tuesday announced a comprehensive strategic partnership that includes an equity investment, in-app credit card payments, joint bank cards, automobile financing services and driver recruitment.

The equity investment makes CMB latest addition to the mobile app's powerful backers that already includes Tencent, Alibaba, China Investment Corporation, Ping An Ventures, China International Capital Corporation, CITIC Capital, Beijing Automotive Group and others.

Neither side disclosed the amount of the investment. Didi Kuaidi raised a record-breaking 3 billion U.S. dollars last year.

At a press conference announcing the partnership, Jean Liu, president of Didi Kuaidi, called the CMB investment "a heavyweight", saying its relationship with CMB is "strong and trusting."

Liu said the partnership with CMB would enable the app to connect its financial and mobile online-to-offline platforms to CMB's experience in the banking sector to build the world's largest online ride-hailing platform.

"In the spirit of openness and collaboration, Didi looks forward to building an ever stronger, broader transportation platform with China's leading financial and industry players," she said.

CMB customers will be able to pay fares with CMB credit cards. Both companies will begin accepting applications for joint CMB-Didi credit and savings cards through CMB's sales channels or Didi's app in the second quarter of this year.

Didi drivers and car owners will be able to finance vehicle purchases through CMB, with terms and payments based on a joint review by CMB and Didi. Didi Kuaidi and CMB will share client information in line with regulations.

Zhao Ju, executive vice president of CMB, said the deal with Didi would advance CMB's internet finance strategy in the sharing economy.

China has about 688 million Internet users and most of them spend money through their mobile phones every day, according to data from the China Internet Network Information Center.

With more than 250 million registered app users and 14 million registered drivers, Didi Kuaidi is one of the most popular apps and online payment platforms, recording 1.43 billion rides last year.

People wait for the opening of a China Merchants Bank's recruitment drive in Shanghai.

As digital banking takes hold, Chinese lenders are desperately seeking to hire professionals with skills in nine key fields, including big data analysis, mobile interface development, agile process management, digital user experience design and virtual payments.

They are focusing on management and career development of digital banking talents. Compensation packages, key performance indicators and appraisal criteria for such professional are being formulated anew, to be in line with technology companies, said The Boston Consulting Group in a report earlier this month.

David He, a partner and managing director of BCG, said traditional banks must figure out how to attract, retain and train digital talents, as well as where to deploy them. Top bank executives also have to decide whether to allow these professionals to develop freely or adjust the human resource management system accordingly.

Liu Xinyi, president of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, said at a financial forum in June, "China deepened the interest rate liberalization in recent years, built a multilateral capital market and relaxed the control of market entry for private banks. These reform measures, along with the booming of Internet finance, brought huge challenges to commercial banks and weakened their appeal to talents."

A growing number of professionals at various levels are being lured away from State-owned commercial banks by Internet companies and privately owned lenders with the promise of higher pay and career advancement.

The exodus of banking talents was also partly triggered by a government-led salary reform effective Jan 1, 2015 to promote equality at State-owned enterprises.

According to the draft plan, the annual pay of top executives in State-owned financial organizations will be cut by around 70 percent to a top annual compensation of 600,000 yuan ($91,560).

After leaving traditional banks, many experienced professionals and senior executives, however, found that it was hard for them to adapt to new culture and work style of Internet finance companies.

WeBank, the country's first online private bank, was jointly founded by domestic Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd and two local investment firms in December 2014.

Less than a year after WeBank received regulatory approval to start operations, its president Cao Tong and vice president Zheng Xinlin resigned. Both had many years of work experience at traditional banks.

Analysts cited the clash of corporate cultures of Internet-based companies and traditional banks as one of the reasons for their departure, in addition to a factional fight among the bank brass.

Even digital talents that migrated from Internet companies to commercial banks faced similar adaptability problems.

The BCG report said the two cultures are very different. Internet companies encourage trial and error, horizontal cooperation and open dialogue. They are flexible, client-centric and innovative. On the other hand, traditional banks are rigid, channel-oriented and risk-averse. They develop products based on technologies rather than consumers. Their decision-making process usually goes through multiple layers of management.

Unemployment in Taiwan was 3.78 percent last year, the lowest level since 2000, the island's statistics agency announced Friday.

This is a decrease from 3.96 percent posted in 2014, showing the job market is generally steady, the agency said in a press release.

There were around 440,000 unemployed people in Taiwan in 2015, compared with 11.2 million employed, it said.

The unemployment rate of the young (15 to 24 years old) was 12.05 percent, compared with 3.95 percent for the 25-44 age range, and 1.99 percent for those aged between 45 and 64.

In December alone, 3.87 percent of Taiwan's residents reported being unemployed, down from 3.91 percent for November.

The agency said in a separate statement that in the first 11 months of 2015, industrial and service sector employees had record high average monthly salaries -- around 48,650 New Taiwan dollars (about 1,445 U.S. dollars).

Job hunters seek information at a Zhaopin.com stand.

Zhaopin Ltd, China's biggest job recruitment site, has received a non-binding offer to take the firm private, a year and a half after debuting on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company said on Wednesday it had received the preliminary proposal from affiliates of CDH Investments and Shanghai Goliath Investment Management LP.

Zhaopin said it considered the acquisition offer a fairly high valuation from the two noted investment institutions.

Officials said its board of directors are currently valuing the offer, but they did not disclose any further details or the time frame for the deal.

The investors plan to acquire all outstanding ordinary shares not owned by Zhaopin's controlling shareholder, Australian investment firm SEEK International Investments Pty Ltd which owns 68 percent of Zhaopin, for $17.50 in cash per American depositary share.

The price represents around a 22 percent premium to the company's closing at $14.35 per ADS on Jan 15, and values the company at $1.1 billion.

Officials did not give any information about whether it plans to relist on the A-share market.

Currently, it had approximately 322,000 unique employers and 105 million white-collar job seekers on its books.

Founded in 1997, Zhaopin was also one of the country's first recruiting websites.

It floated in June 2014, and is still the only Chinese job listing website listed in New York.

According to its latest earnings report, it has seen annual double-digit growth rates consecutively since going public.

Chief Executive Guo Sheng said earlier that its growth has been driven by expanding customer penetration, particularly among China's small and medium-sized companies, at a time of difficult domestic employment conditions and increased competition from career development portals.

The potential delisting would follow other Chinese companies exiting overseas stock markets.

Last year, the number of Chinese companies that received privatization offers exceeded the total number in the past 12 years.

A number of US-listed companies including Chinese leading Internet security company Qihoo 360 Technology Co Ltd and China's largest specialist in airport displays AirMedia Group Inc have now reached final privatization agreements with potential buyers.

FocusMedia Holding Ltd, which used to be China's largest overseas listed advertising firm, has already been privatized and has listed on the A-share market.

Chinese Internet company Meituan-Dianping announced on Tuesday that it has raised more than $3.3 billion in a funding round, valuing the company at $18 billion.

The deal is the largest single-round private financing in China's Internet industry up to date and the largest in the online-to-offline business section worldwide, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Leading investors include Tencent Holdings Ltd, Russian investment firm DST Global, and ChinTrust Bridge Partners.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the original investor of Meituan, did not participate in the new round of financing.

Meituan-Dianping is the country's largest online-to-offline company, offering a wide range of services like group-buying, selling movie tickets and food delivery.

The company was formed in October when Tencent-backed Dianping and Alibaba-financed Meituan merged.

With 150 million monthly active users, it can handle 10 million orders every day. In 2015, its online transactions totaled 170 billion yuan ($26 billion), the company said in a statement.

Chinese online retailer JD.com said on Saturday that its financial arm will get 6.65 billion yuan (around 1 billion U.S. dollars) in funding from a group of investors.

The NASDAQ-listed online retailer said Sequoia Capital China, China Harvest Investments and China Taiping Insurance are chief among a group investors funding JD Finance, which offers a broad range of financial services including consumer credits, loans, insurance and wealth management products since its launch in 2013.

The funding, set to complete in the first half this year, will value JD.com's financial subsidiary at 46.65 billion yuan.

JD.com said it still holds the majority stakes in JD Finance after the funding completes.