Barclays to hire 1,500 for S'pore tech unit-paper

SINGAPORE, Sept 29 (Reuters) - British bank Barclays (BARC.L) plans to hire 1,500 highly skilled staff over the next few years at its newly established technology centre in Singapore, the Straits Times reported on Monday quoting a senior executive.

The hiring plan comes despite a credit crunch that has led to thousands of job losses in the financial sector.

Frits Seegers, Barclays' chief executive of retail and commercial banking, told the newspaper in an interview that while the financial turmoil might last another 18 months, this was a good time to expand. He did not say how many years it would take to hire the new people.

"We decided to expand and to invest because we can," he said. "We picked Singapore to be a technology heart for Barclays."

The headcount is an addition to the 2,500 that Barclays currently has for its investment banking and wealth management businesses in Singapore, the paper said.

Seegers said it was still costly to acquire banking franchises in emerging markets, while some buying opportunities had emerged in the United States.

Barclays agreed to buy Lehman Brothers' North American investment banking and capital markets businesses for about $1.75 billion after Lehman filed for the largest bankruptcy in history. (Reporting by Saeed Azhar; Editing by Anshuman Daga)