The one Asian banking job where you’ll probably never get fired (even at Deutsche)

If you’re a 20-something planning a long-term career in the Asian finance sector, good luck to you. Over the next three to five years, a third of job functions in Singapore financial services will disappear or be radically changed by automation, according to an April report by the Institute of Banking and Finance and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Meanwhile, trading and investment banking jobs continue to fall under the axe in Asia – Deutsche Bank and HSBC are among the latest firms to cut their front offices.

If you want to live a life (comparatively) free from layoffs, where should you work (presuming that you’re not a technologist)? New industry-wide data and earnings reports from major banks suggest you should consider a job in transaction banking, the bread-and-butter sector that encompasses both trade finance and cash management.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2kGMHJg

“Too far from the food court” and other awful excuses for job hopping in Singapore and Hong Kong
It’s the perpetual complaint of senior bankers and recruiters in both Hong Kong and Singapore: the CVs of young finance professionals are cluttered with too many short stints at too many different banks.

We’ve compiled a list of the 10 worst reasons that banking professionals in Asia are using to justify their job hopping when interviewing at banks or speaking to recruiters. If you’ve changed roles a tad too often of late, avoid mentioning any of the below.

Boss not senior enough
“One candidate I met said she job hopped because a newly appointed boss didn’t have a senior enough job title,” says Ben Batten, managing director of recruitment firm Volt in Singapore. “But she returned to the same bank only a year later when the same boss received a promotion to director. She was happy about this and not ashamed to admit it was her reason for moving back again.”

Read more: https://bit.ly/2kvaaNz

If you’re a finance student in Singapore, you may well be applying for a 2020 internship, and you may well be applying to Goldman Sachs. Good luck to you –  very few applicants go on to secure internships.

If you do make the cut, let me tell you roughly what’s in store for you. I interned with Goldman in Singapore last year.

First up, Goldman being Goldman, I must have worked crazy hours, right? Actually, no. I usually started at 9am and finished between 9pm and 10pm. Goldman is trying to show that it’s serious about managing intern working hours in Singapore. Every day my fellow interns and I had to enter our hours into an HR system, and the HR team would alert our managers if they spotted us clocking 80-hour weeks.

In Singapore at least, time management is one of the rubrics that Goldman uses to assess interns. It’s not just about doing an excellent job; it’s about doing an excellent job within a certain timeframe and being able to prioritise your workload to achieve your main goals. This is what it takes to prove that you are ‘Goldman material’.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2km9KZN

This is what you’re likely to earn at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Singapore

f you want to join a (comparatively) stable investment bank in Singapore right now, Bank of America Merrill Lynch might well be on your radar. While firms such as Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Societe Generale have announced front-office Asian layoffs this year, BAML has generally held back. The bank has also reshuffled its senior leadership in Asia. In July, it appointed Peter Guenthardt, previously country executive for Singapore and Southeast Asia, as co-head of Asia Pacific investment banking, working alongside Alex To.

Although the US firm doesn’t feature highly in individual M&A, ECM or DCM league tables in Asia, it does place a fairly respectable eighth for overall APAC (international and ex-Japan) IB revenue for the first half of 2019, according to Dealogic. Meanwhile, 2018 Asian revenue before expenses at BAML increased 28% to $865m year-on-year, according to the bank’s annual report (its quarterly results don’t break out figures by geography).

Read more: https://bit.ly/2mi51c1

The Hong Kong banking jobs with the biggest pay rises for the rest of 2019

It’s nearly the fourth quarter – traditionally a comparatively quiet period for hiring in Hong Kong as banks tighten headcount budgets while they plan for next year. But despite the seasonal slowdown and other headwinds (including civil unrest in Hong Kong and falling growth on the mainland), banks are still ramping up recruitment in certain job functions – and paying top dollar to poach candidates from competitors.

What are the Hong Kong banking jobs with the best pay rises? Recruiters in the city say a salary increment of 15% or more is on the generous side if you’re moving to a new bank – 10% is the norm in the current market. Here’s a non-exhaustive selection of some of the roles where you’ll get at least 15% (probably more) if you change employers.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2meROAG

What you’ll really get paid at Grab in Singapore

Singaporean tech unicorn Grab, which is reportedly valued at US$14bn, now has sufficient clout in the job market to poach people from banks on a fairly regular basis. In June, for example, John David Yap, UOB’s former group head of business banking analytics, joined as MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) lead for lending at Grab Financial, the company’s financial services arm.

Grab will likely keep hiring from the banking sector as it expands beyond its ride-hailing roots to become a so-called super app, offering numerous services across Southeast Asia – from beer delivery, to payments and insurance. The company reportedly wants to employ 3,000 people in Singapore by the end of next year, double its early-2019 headcount.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2mi6lvt

Forget the global job cuts. In Singapore, HSBC is….hiring

While HSBC has been busy axing about 4,000 jobs globally, in Singapore it has been doing something rather different: hiring.

HSBC in Singapore has increased its “business-facing headcount” by more than 10% over the past year and now employs more than 3,000 people across all functions, a spokesperson for the bank told us.

There’s more recruitment to come. As part of a previously announced broader plan to expand in Asian wealth management – which includes additional hiring in Hong Kong – HSBC is adding over 400 Singapore-based retail and private banking employees (such as relationship managers) between 2018 and 2023.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2m1j59V

"I’m a recruiter in Asia. Working with tier-one banks here drives me crazy."

If you’re a banking professional in Hong Kong or Singapore you probably don’t spend too much time thinking about the recruitment industry – you don’t care who gets you the job as long as you get it. I’m a recruiter myself and I certainly understand that.

But I also believe you should be worried when relations between recruiters and banks start to break down, because this lessens your own chances of landing a role. Applying for a job via a recruiter is almost always easier than going directly because the recruiter promotes you as their candidate and helps with a myriad of other things, in particular salary negotiations. So when I tell you that things are going wrong in my industry you should be worried – it doesn’t just affect my commission.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2kE6rgw

Here’s a great way to catch up on the week’s news in Asia:

Asia
"I’m a recruiter in Asia. Working with tier-one banks here drives me crazy."
https://bit.ly/2nymPQK
Unemployed bankers in Singapore and Hong Kong face grim struggle finding new jobs
https://bit.ly/2n20Wco
Barclays is leaking traders in Singapore and Hong Kong, but is still aiming to grow
https://bit.ly/2m7UL6o
Three people with some of the toughest jobs at HSBC in Asia
https://bit.ly/2mZ3ojT

Singapore
A leading Singapore banker has resurfaced to head up a key team at OCBC
https://bit.ly/2m0330n
Senior Singapore trader leaves hedge fund after three years, returns to banking
https://bit.ly/2mcaDF9
Forget the global job cuts. In Singapore, HSBC is….hiring
https://bit.ly/2nyMx7J
What Singapore-based technologists at your bank are really getting paid in 2019
https://bit.ly/2lyN8Wy
A DBS “digital handyman” is now helping to transform…Singtel
https://bit.ly/2n1WCKe
Salaries at OCBC in Singapore: what you're likely to get paid
https://bit.ly/2nH46Tl
The Singapore banking jobs where you have no future
https://bit.ly/2lpQfQm
30% of current vacancies at Singapore banks are in a single job sector
https://bit.ly/2m8lXC8
Singapore job seeker is offered 35% pay rise…he rejects it and demands 40%.
https://bit.ly/2nFtkBt

Hong Kong
2019 年內加薪幅度最大的六大香港銀行職位
https://bit.ly/2nyw0AG
唯一值得您離開金融業，轉投其中的駐港 Amazon 職位
https://bit.ly/2maIvC9
渣打銀行負責人轉型，投身巿值高於高盛的金融科技公司
https://bit.ly/2n3VXb9
騰訊正在大力招聘人手，為香港銀行業帶來重大改變
https://bit.ly/2nGRbAN
匯豐銀行全球裁員 4,000 人已成過去。在亞洲地區，匯豐正在招聘人手
https://bit.ly/2nFqtbM

Happy Monday! Here’s some news you might have missed over the weekend:

Singapore and HK recruiters warn bankers against these terrible CV cliches
https://bit.ly/2on7Qtm

Why other banks in Asia would love to hire Standard Chartered’s new director
https://bit.ly/2nM4b8o

Axed MUFG traders in Asia will “struggle” to find new jobs
https://bit.ly/2nNPCkl

The under-the-radar jobs that HSBC is recruiting for in Singapore

Think jobs at HSBC in Singapore, think jobs in private banking and wealth management. As part of a broader plan to expand in Asian wealth management, HSBC is adding more than 400 Singapore-based retail and private banking employees (such as relationship managers) between 2018 and 2023.

But while wealth vacancies do dominate current Singapore-based openings at HSBC, our analysis of the bank’s careers site highlights interesting roles in other fields that may have escaped your attention. Moreover, these jobs suggest some of the areas that Philip Lee, HSBC’s new Southeast Asia vice chairman for global banking (the division that includes teams such as investment banking, markets, and transaction banking), is likely to focus on in the months to come. As we reported last week, HSBC wants to expand in Singapore beyond wealth management under Lee’s leadership.  

Read more: https://bit.ly/2oQ1SBL

From Goldman Sachs to DBS: the heads of tech you need to know in Singapore banking

Most global and local banks in Singapore are ramping up their technology recruitment in an effort to take on more people who can develop the products that are reshaping their businesses.  

But who are the senior managers in charge of banks’ technology strategy (and hiring) in Singapore? Here’s a selection of some of the top technologists you need to know if you’re searching for a technology job in Singapore, largely based on their public profiles.

Soh Siew Choo, group head of consumer banking and big data/AI technology, DBS
Soh took on her current role, which focuses on two of the most innovative areas in banking technology, in March 2017, having worked as group head of core systems technology since 2014. Soh has been a key driver behind the DBS hackathon recruitment initiative, Hack2hire, and told us earlier this year that she likes to hire technologists from outside the banking industry. Prior to DBS, Soh was head of Asia banking technology at JP Morgan in Hong Kong.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2OihbO7

Five skills that will supercharge your banking career in Singapore

As you may have read on this site last week, the Singapore government has launched a huge new set of guidelines (and an accompanying interactive website) to help finance professionals advance their careers and avoid their jobs being automated.

The new Skills Framework for Financial Services provides detailed information on the skills needed to succeed in 157 job sectors, maps out typical pathways to promotion in these roles, and suggests potential sideways moves between different functions that demand similar expertise.

But there are some skills within the Singapore finance sector – five to be precise – that are apparently much more sought after that any others: cybersecurity, data collection and analysis, digital literacy, risk management, and user experience design. The new framework (which is the brainchild of the Institute of Banking and Finance, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, SkillsFuture Singapore, and Workforce Singapore) emphasises that people “seeking successful careers in financial services can set themselves apart by acquiring these skills”.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2AXiAl7

Bankers in Singapore, Hong Kong regret taking “mouth-watering” 50% pay rises

More private bankers in Singapore and Hong Kong are succumbing to the lure of bumper pay rises at boutique banks, only to struggle to meet onerous revenue targets a year down the track. As we've been reporting in 2019, boutique private banks such as Pictet, LGT, VP Bank, EFG, and Safra Sarasin are regularly trying to poach relationship managers from major players like UBS and Credit Suisse.

If you join another large bank, the pay rise is typically 20% to 30%, but boutique private banks offer salary increments at a “mouth-watering” 30% to 50%, says Liu San Li, a former private banker, now a business partner at wealth management firm Avallis.

“Boutiques don’t have the same tight salary bands as UBS, Goldman and Standard Chartered do. And they pay more because there’s a risk premium for joining an up-and-coming firm,” adds former Merrill Lynch private banker Rahul Sen, now a global leader in private wealth management at search firm Boyden. “It’s like the bond markets – the bigger the risk, the bigger the percentage.”

Read more: https://bit.ly/30Wuoi7

Hong Kong’s civil unrest is affecting retail bankers more than investment bankers

While the daily lives of wealthy employees working at investment banks’ head offices in Hong Kong have been comparatively unaffected by the ongoing protests sweeping the city, spare a thought for those lower down the banking pay table: retail staff at Chinese banks.
Some retail employees at Bank of China, ICBC, CITIC, and Bank of Communications were unable to work as planned on Saturday as their firms collectively closed hundreds of branches because of fears that protesters would target them. These concerns were well founded. Several Bank of China branches were vandalised over the long weekend and five could not reopen on Tuesday because of fire damage, reports the South China Morning Post. Similarly, ICBC, kept four “seriously damaged” branches closed yesterday.

Employees who’ve experienced the trauma of their workplaces being shuttered and/or vandalised, may be wishing they weren’t working in retail branches. Staff based in the high-rise towers of investment banks in Hong Kong have told us that they’ve only suffered only minor inconveniences to their personal and professional lives since the anti-government protests kicked off in June. The attack on a JP Morgan private banker outside his firm’s Chater House office on Friday was an exception to the rule, not part of a trend.  

Read more: https://bit.ly/2MrZclF

25-year-olds in Singapore and Hong Kong are getting stuck in boring back office jobs

Some aspiring investment bankers in Singapore and Hong Kong are accepting back-office graduate roles just to have a ‘big brand’ bank on their business card. “I have many friends in Singapore who couldn’t get a front-office graduate offer from the likes of Morgan Stanley or Goldman, but they did get into a top-tier bank by accepting an operations role,” says a young Singapore-based investment banker who works for a boutique firm. “Now, three or four years later, they hate their jobs and they’ve become stuck in ops.”

Too many Singaporean students, who ultimately want to become front-office bankers, think that joining a firm with a “glamorous brand name” (in other words, a leading US or European IB) is initially more important than the actual job they do, he adds. “There aren’t many front-office opportunities for grads at the big-brand banks in Singapore, so some people become desperate if they can’t get in, and they rake the job market for middle and back-office roles at these firms,” says the junior banker. “They plan to transfer internally into a banker role down the track. By contrast, I don’t work for a Goldman, but at least I’m an investment banker.”

Read more: https://bit.ly/33mr41q

Here’s what you might have missed today:

Hong Kong expats vow not to quit city yet, but they have a ‘plan B’
https://bit.ly/2MBknli

This is what your investment banking salary and bonus should be in Singapore
https://bit.ly/2psfymr

This new HSBC Singapore head is far more powerful than you might think
https://bit.ly/31it6hQ

Why it’s been a bad nine months to be a banker in Hong Kong or Singapore
https://bit.ly/31iE5HS

These are the poorest paying banking jobs in Singapore

What are the banking jobs to avoid in Singapore if you want to stay solvent after you’ve finished your analyst training? To find out, we looked through five 2019 recruiter pay surveys in Singapore and identified some of the (non-technology) roles that pay the lowest annual base salaries to people with about four years’ experience (i.e. associate level).

If you choose to work in any of the nine job sectors in the table below (which averages out pay figures from the five salary surveys) you will still be earning no more than S$80k even after four years working at a large bank in Singapore.

Banks such as Citi, HSBC, Standard Chartered and (most recently) Deutsche Bank have been investing heavily in their profitable Asian transaction banking franchises. However, if you want to work in transaction banking, avoid an operations job – you’ll be paid just S$69k as an associate, according to our average salary data.

Read more: https://bit.ly/35ww8Ci

Killer questions that Singapore banks will use to trip you up at job interviews

Why work here instead of an international bank?

Expect to get this question almost before you’ve taken a seat. Try to focus on the specific, positive pull factors of DBS, OCBC or UOB. “When moving from an international bank to a Singaporean bank, show you understand how the local banks differentiate themselves in your job function,” says Matthieu Imbert-Bouchard, managing director of recruiters Robert Half in Singapore. “This question is an opportunity to show you’ve done your research as each bank will have a reputation for doing something well.”

Read more: https://bit.ly/2IZC8K6

We had jobs at Chinese banks: this is what it's really like working for one

Chinese banks aren’t just challenging global firms in the Asian revenue tables – they’re also competing to hire the best summer interns. But what’s it like to actually work as an intern at a Chinese bank in Hong Kong?
To find out, we spoke with two recent Hong Kong-based interns: James Wen spent the summer with Bank of China in Hong Kong, while Nigel Jiang has experienced both ICBC and BOC (we’ve used pseudonyms to protect their identities).

Here’s what they had to say.

What kind of work were you doing during your internship?
Wen: It was all real work; I wasn't just scanning documents. It was mostly project-based work and at the end of a project I had to create a PowerPoint and make a presentation. This was my first internship in the financial sector, so everything was really new to me – I found it challenging.
Jiang: My core task was to conduct research about the markets: interest-rate and currencies trends, industrial updates, and regulatory information which might affect our fixed income, currencies and commodities business. I was my responsibility to optimise my colleagues’ operational efficiency – so I did the Excel stuff to help their decision making, for example. And while I also gave administrative support, I didn't make any coffee for my colleagues!

Read more: https://bit.ly/2oY2aqk