Now the economy is very bad. Some of the banks have started to rescind their job offers, suggest you take up MAS offer and worry less down the road.

As with government service, the prospects of everyone differs and is generally as such:

1) Top Tier - MAS / Presidents' Scholar (who transfer from other ministries)
2) Second Tier - First Class Honors Fresh Grad who join MAS direct from School
3) Third Tier - Other Second Class Honors Fresh Grad who join MAS direct from School
4) Bottom Tier - Mid Careers

The tiers shown above generally shows a person's "potential" which have a direct relationship to your promotion, opportunities, bonus and pay. The difference between the bonus between the top tier and the bottom tier can be significant - i.e. at least 2.5 months difference.

While they purport to be competitive in terms of pay and benefits and perform yearly benchmark exercises, do note that they generally benchmark against support functions such as Operations and HR salaries in banks. The benchmark exercises do not include the money makers such as front office (which make sense since not all MAS officers are money makers), and not even risk management functions such as internal audit or compliance (this does not make sense however).

Perks wise - The flexibility to take no pay leave is unrivaled. Best for mothers who wish to have such flexibility.

How about first class honours who hopped over from trading role/front office in private?

The number of trolls here is such a joke. There are many instances of MAS scholars that promoted slower than the mid careers. Seriously, please read this forum with a huge pinch of salt.

You will find that they definitely cannot match your previous pay. But yes, they will want you.

Depends on the role you received from MAS and the bank. Also depends what is your career preference.

E.g.

Go for the bank offer if it is MA program, Front Office, Trading, Sales, IT related.
Go for MAS if the bank offer is Operations, Compliance, Credit/Risk Analyst.

Oh just passing by to prop a useful advice to all those “Central Banking” enthusiasts:

Note that MAS Graduate Officers merely play a peripheral role to the central bank. Policy making and quantitative analysis are oftentimes given to officers from MTI’s Economist track that are seconded to MAS.

Don’t get baited. :)

What about Goldman Ops vs MAS?

^This, and the MAS scholars too.

Goldman got IMDB scandal. If can, go JPM.

MAS is safe, prestigious. More exit opportunities.

Ops is a dead end career. No progression and easily replaced by automation

I second the above poster. Ops is highly at risk of being outsourced to low cost countries or/and automated. You can always rise up the ranks in Ops but the question is whether there is time to do that before it is outsourced from Singapore. Unless you are ok with working overseas, since if you can perform they may want you to manage teams in lower cost countries.

But from what I've heard, Goldman Ops is moving its APAC Ops to the Singapore HQ. So for now it seems to be moving in opposite direction to other banks?

Safe? Yes.
Prestigious? Maybe I guess.
Exit opportunities? Probably if you’re doing licensing or compliance for challenger banks.

An ops role with a bulge bracket is never a dead end career and is miles better than working with MAS unless you’re in MTI’s Economist track.

Do you even know what ops encompasses? KYC, equity sales, debt issuance and etc. will forever be industry relevant skills in the finance sector.

I did my internship in JP Morgan ops back in 2016. KYC? Will be automated. Equity sales? You kidding bro? You do know you aren't actually doing the sales. Stop lying to yourself. You're just double checking credit limits, executing the trade and consolidating reports.

Ops is back end and will be offshored from Singapore. it will be dead end in 5-10 years time.

In terms of prestige, both are prestigious enough. MAS, if supervision role, probably can jump to compliance roles? If policy dept, can progress further. Maybe end up in politics.

Anyhoo, both seem like back office roles to me so just flip a coin and move on.

Ops analysts are continuously evolving. I assure you, within the span of 10 years, bulge bracket ops will continue to exist.

Yes, menial tasking such as data pulling and fact-checking will be automated. But you still need these back office chaps to facilitate a client's trading systems to make sure they're properly plugged into the platform, or negotiating with the client's finance team to make sure they understand the kind of pricing the team can offer.

I’ll give it to you, any quant buy-side hardo role will better than ops but we’re comparing working in BB Ops vs a MAS pencil pusher and honestly, the former clearly has better career trajectory.

MAS Career switch
 

Hi all , to those that have worked in MAS, in need of your advise. i am getting around 12k now working in a bank. Is it wise to make a switch to MAS ? Are they able to pay the amount of salary i am having now or even more than that ? Thanks in advance.

IMO front office middle office or back office is not that important. Job satisfaction is not just determined by whether you do sales or ops or controls. You can have as much fun doing risk models, stress testing, or checking whistleblowing cases as compared to trading, doing sales, or visiting clients as an RM. It depends on what you enjoy doing.

But do bear in mind that most people's careers are determined by what they start doing. Somebody in Ops can transition to sales but it's not easy. Someone doing Ops generally will stay in Ops for long term.

Hence, it is important to consider the long-term aspects of the role. Automation does not just affect Ops, it affects trading as much. So other than job satisfaction, do think long term whether the job will still be around in the future. Be it outsourcing or automation.

Hi everyone, has anyone received an offer for the graduate officer position? I went for the interview in March but haven't heard back since.

same here. interview was late feb.

if you have not received an offer for the Graduate office position then most likely you've been rejected... most offers were already sent out 2 months ago.

when was your interview?

whats your status on the online portal?

What is the average increment year on year for MAS?

First interview way back in Dec' 19, next round early Feb, final round late march, offer few days after

isn't it the impress.ai? how to check status

Yes, impress.ai

Just log in and click?

I already reached the end where it's the FAQ part. it says application processing. what's yours?

Hi! May I know which department you applied?

Chosen in the final shortlist.

oh yes found it. it says "Your application has been chosen in the final shortlist."

what does it mean?

it means you got into final round.

How is the progression like? Assuming average performance, can I expect 10k a month in 10 years?

for sure... its MAS! Excluding GIC & Temasek, MAS is the most prestigious government body (also EDB & MFA of course)

how is the culture like at MAS? and how long is the promotion for each designation for a typical average performer?

thanks in advance!

Associate: 0-3 years
AD: 3-10 years
DD: max level for normal people. scholars or very high performers can go the next level.

How much can you earn as an AD? If you AD for 10 years

The salaries quoted in this forum are higher than the reality.
I don't think my pay is very high at all. DDs can get $10k, almost double of young ADs.

yeah follow up to that qn, comparing a 1st year AD vs 7th year AD is the pay increment significant given that the rank/title is the same?

yes of course.

The title "AD" is the same but rank is not the same.
AD can be Level 11 or Level 12 (13 is the lowest, for graduate officers).
AD can also be a Team Lead, and they will get more bonus.
The pay increment is only significant to move up Level 11 from Level 12. Else, not significant cause it's not a promotion.