eFinancialCareers

Smaller might be better when it comes to finding a fulfilling private banking role. More flexibility, less sales pressure and fewer country constraints are key draw cards of working for a niche player in Asia. Reto Isenring, Singapore managing director at VP Bank, which also has offices in Hong Kong, says relationship managers (RMs) at big banks often become “product sales machines”. He tells us: “Many of them get... Read more

Australian private banking recruitment looks set to keep rising on the back of a growing and largely untapped potential client base. And the senior openings aren’t only for those already working at a private bank. David Hewett, general manager of St George’s private bank, tells us that many of the 160,000 Australians with more than AU$1m in assets-to-invest don’t realise they qualify for the private treatment. “Private banking is certainly... Read more

The AU$18.6bn merger plan announced this month between Westpac and St George looks destined to lead to big job cuts. Experts expect thousands of jobs to be axed as the banks integrate their operations and reduce overlaps across different divisions, as well as at the branch level. Toon Van Beeck, senior analyst with industry research group IBISWorld, estimates mergers and takeovers in the banking sector will result in the loss of... Read more

What is it about ABN AMRO employees that’s so irresistible to Babcock & Brown (B&B)? The ASX-listed investment bank has poached ABN’s entire Indian M&A group, having nicked its infrastructure team 18 months ago. ABN staff might well be desirable, but this latest raid was motivated more by location: India. While outsourcing retail support roles to the sub-continent is common, we are now starting to see banks, including B&B... Read more

It’s probably the best-kept secret in Australian banking circles right now. Just how big will Macquarie Bank’s profit be when it reports its annual results on 20th May, and will employee bonuses rise, fall or remain the same as last year? The bonus question has just about everyone stumped, with recruiters having little if anything to go by, except Macquarie’s own recent forecast that its full-year earnings will be up about... Read more

Forget the US bulge bracket – Australian private banks are the new kids on the block in Asia, and they’re hiring voraciously. Macquarie Bank launched its Asian private wealth business in Singapore in March this year to target the booming regional market. National Australia Bank is also aggressively expanding in Asia, says Sicilia Lim, a senior consultant at recruiters Robert Walters. Lim says the Australians and other new niche... Read more

You’d think UBS would be finding it hard to hang on to people: a first-quarter loss of US$12bn, writedowns of US$19bn and job cuts in Europe – including the chairman himself, Marcel Ospel. The strange thing is, no one seems to want to get out of there. Recruiters, whose inboxes are usually crammed with CVs when institutions show signs of cracking, say the only thing to come out of UBS so... Read more

Wholesale redundancies don’t seem to be on the agenda right now for Australia’s major and regional trading banks, or for most of the investment banks. That’s the word from senior recruiters, although the marketplace is still full of downsizing rumours, including one that Bank of America will scale back from a trading bank to a branch office, and that Citigroup will slice into its local headcount. Edmund Gill, director of Hays... Read more

Who'll buy ABN AMRO's Australian unit? And what will happen to its 700 local staff? With a reported AU$1bn price tag, and most banks struggling to find cash at the moment, sale advisers Lazard Carnegie Wylie certainly have their work cut out. Analysts regard ABN AMRO’s mergers and acquisition division as one of the key strengths of the local unit, and say any buyer will likely be keen to retain as many... Read more

It's not looking good if you fancy landing a job in the Australian financial services market. The Aussie banking sector job market is floundering, according to the most recent monthly instalment of the Olivier Job Index. Report author Bob Olivier, a director of recruiter Olivier Group, attributes the poor results – down 5.12% in February – to the credit crunch, interest rate rises and the stock market sell-off. “Sub-prime write-offs have hurt... Read more

Forget US business schools, a new study suggests MBAs from China see the biggest boost to their earnings once the course has finished. The Financial Times’ 2008 MBA report found that alumni from Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University and Beijing’s China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) land the biggest salary increases upon graduation – 177% and 157% respectively. By comparison, graduates from a big name like the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School... Read more

There are signs that Australia’s appetite for banking talent isn’t quite what it was. According to the latest Olivier Internet Job Index, banking and finance was one of the slowest growing sectors in the past 12 months, dropping 1.45% in January. Is the sky falling in on the banking recruitment market? Bob Olivier, the report’s author, and director at Olivier Recruitment Group, says he’s not convinced: “We’re putting it down to interest... Read more

Senior women in Australia earn 50% less than their male counterparts, according to a Federal Government report. Is the same true in banking? No – at least not according to Bob Olivier, a director at the Olivier Recruitment Group in Sydney. He says the report’s findings astonished him. “My experience is that clients won’t offer a job to Julie rather than Steve to save on salary. It might be that if... Read more

Australia hasn’t lived up to its promise for ANZ’s ex-group managing director, Steve Targett. How common is it for immigrant bankers to come unstuck? In the case of Targett, the stakes are high and getting higher. Last month, he upped his damages claim from AU$2.1m to a hefty AU$57m, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review. Targett, a former banker with Lloyds TSB, claims he left his well-paid job... Read more

It’s often the case that when senior management changes occur, the after-effects can be felt through the organisation for some time to come. It’s too early to tell what sort of executive after-effects might develop following the departure of Macquarie Bank’s long-standing CEO Alan Moss in May, but most believe it will be pretty much business as usual on the recruitment front when new boss Nicholas Moore steps in. Macquarie expects to... Read more

Regardless of market uncertainty, there are several reasons why banks in Asia should keep hiring. And they are…. Talent shortages Matthew Hoyle, Asia Pacific director of headhunter Matthew Hoyle International, says: “There is still a tremendous shortage in the five to nine years' experience bracket across nearly all divisions, due to SARS and the Asian Crisis. No one was trained and hardly anyone hired during that period.” China Mainland Chinese banks have huge... Read more

Who’s hiring in Victoria? Big banks, according to recruiters. Sadly, the spokeswomen for both Melbourne-based ANZ Bank and National Australia Bank were unwilling to comment on their organisation’s hiring needs for 2008, but recruiters assure us both banks are staffing up in Melbourne during the first quarter of this year. “We have seen a big increase in demand for business development and relationship management staff due to new sales budgets that have... Read more

Stock markets have further to fall, Bank of America’s making redundancies, and recruiters say some banks are already scaling back Asian hiring plans. Reuters reports that Bank of America is scaling back its DCM business in Asia Pac and making around 15 people – mostly structurers and originators – redundant. After steep falls of 20% or more from last year's peaks, many equities now look cheap. But even after the Federal Reserve's dramatic “emergency”... Read more

There's more to the Middle East than sovereign wealth funds. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have made headlines in the past few weeks, thanks to the hyperactive investments of their sovereign wealth funds, which have helped several international banks out of a sticky sub-prime situation. But there’s more to the region than state investments. International banks are also present – and hiring. Macquarie opened a Dubai office around two... Read more