JP Morgan has high hopes for Hong Kong to recover and live up to its potential as a financial hub when the economic cycle turns.

The New York-based bank says it will continue to invest in the SAR, where it has been doing business for a century.

“We are not the type of company that is going to go fully in one day and fully out the other. These are [business] cycles, and we’ve been navigating cycle after cycle over time," said Daniel Pinto, the company's president and chief operating officer, in an exclusive interview with South China Morning Post.

JPMorgan, which oversees assets of US$2.6 trillion, said it will keep searching to hire in China.

Pinto stressed that there is still room to grow, pointing to the "disproportionate" level of the bank's mainland business and the size of the nation's economy, adding that Hong Kong will continue to be part of the growth.

“China is the second biggest economy in the world and it will create opportunities, how fast or how slow those opportunities will present themselves is a matter of being prudent in that part of the cycle.”