(Yicai Global) May 12 -- A unit of Bank of China has become the first listed Chinese securities brokerage to appoint a chief scientist, tapping a former executive from Baidu to fill the post.

Bank of China International Securities appointed Ge Hao as chief scientist and he will be working as a co-general manager of the company's information technology department, the Shanghai-based brokerage said in a statement recently.

Ge joined BOCI Securities in January 2020. Before that, he served search engine giant Baidu in roles including chief architect and Big Data department chief.

BOCI Securities has intensified its efforts to develop financial technologies in recent years by hiring more IT experts and increasing its investments in the field.

Some 5 percent of the more than 3,000 employees at BOCI Securities were working specifically on IT as of December 2021, according to public data. In the two years since the firm's listing, its investment in IT equaled more than 6 percent of its revenue during those years. Last year, the total investment was CNY200 million (USD29.4 million), rising from about CNY196 million in 2020.

Although BOCI Securities is the first listed securities company to set up the position of chief scientist, several securities companies have chief information officers who tend to have a background in information engineering.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi