May 24 (NBD) -- With the boom of China's blockchain sector, talents are greatly needed in the blockchain market and domestic banks are facing the problem of brain drain.

While a large amount of capital is flowing to the blockchain technology, players from different industries have entered the market.

Data shows that the average salary for positions related to blockchain has reached 25,800 yuan (4,043 U.S. dollars), far more than that for jobs in the internet industry.

Dong Liang, founder and CEO of a blockchain firm, the annual salary for a blockchain technology expert in Silicon Valley is more than 1 million U.S. dollars, which indicates the large demand for such talents.

According to Xie Danli, senior technical expert for blockchain at Ping An Group's fintech service platform OneConnect, there are two types of blockchain talents - one with focus on products and applications, and one specializing in platform development. In Xie's view, the former kind of talents, whose technology and knowledge are based on traditional techniques, are more like engineers adopting traditional technologies. Such kind of talents includes engineers engaging in the development of Java applications, cryptographic algorithms, distributed database and others. 

In addtion, there exist some visionary architects who are forward-looking and are able to point out the weakness of current blockchain products to establish a beachhead in the niche sector, Xie said, adding that such top talents are in very short supply.

Jia Fengjun, deputy general manager at Direct Banking Division, China Minsheng Bank, noted that a real blockchain talent should have the ability and awareness of integrating resources with technology and creating application scenarios for the technology. 

Currently, most Chinese banks saw the problem of brain drain.

While the blockchain technology has subversively affected the traditional financial service sector, it forms the cornerstone of the new industrial framework for the financial service domain. Banks, as traditional financial industry giants, are the pioneers to ride the new wave.

Due to the difficulty in recruiting new talents, a number of banking institutions tend to cultivate talents through internal training. 

Fan Ruibin, deputy general manager at Department of Technology Innovation Product of WeBank, explained that since WeBank forayed into the blockchain field and built its team in 2015, it had felt the pinch of difficulty in recruiting legions of proper talents, so the company chose to offer training for their employees. With the growing of the team, WeBank now needs more blockchain talents beyond technicians, including those who have professional knowledge of product management, marketing, or open source community operation. Such talents are in demand in the market.

An insider held that the trained talents who were engaged in technology development in other fields is likely to have better understanding about the blockchain business than those who only have knowledge about blockchain.

The person also said that some talents would choose to leave the company they work for a few months or half a year after they finish training.

The high-paid job advertisements from some domestic institutions add to banks' worry about brain drain, said Zhang Yuming, senior architect at Information Technology Department of China Merchants Bank.

To retain talents, banks are making all efforts to find solutions, such as to establish an internal motivation mechanism.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn