HSBC’s most senior investment banker Samir Assaf has been elected chairman of the Global Financial Markets Association, the influential bank lobby group, replacing Blythe Masters, who last month resigned as head of commodities at JP Morgan after a 23-year stint at the US bank.

Additionally Kenneth Bentsen, a former US congressman and chief executive of the US-based Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, takes over as chief executive of the GFMA from Simon Lewis, the chief executive of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe and former press secretary to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.