Banking Job: Personal Banker or SME Banker

[stevengoh]

hi guys, NTU grad here, having 2 years of experiences in another industry seeking a career switch into banking sales.

gt offered positions of a Personal Banker and a SME Banker. its 50-50 for me. pay is a strong factor of consideration.

i quite like sales and wanna chiong as much as possible when im still young. i would also like to progress further in this path.

was told by HR that a personal banker is able to earn more, is it true? any advices other than pay such as career progression and all?

thanks.

If you wana cheong sales and intend to make serious big money, you should be targeting enterprise level sales in other industries or PB/IB in banks. Why waste time on mass market retail sales jobs?

Even if you want to do mass market sales, property / insurance agent is where the big money is, not working in some low level sales job in banks. Hardly any top mass market banker make >700k annual compare to top agents in insurance / property where >1mil is common

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Even if you want to do mass market sales, property / insurance agent is where the big money is, not working in some low level sales job in banks. Hardly any top mass market banker make >700k annual compare to top agents in insurance / property where >1mil is common

not TS but i think some insurance agents mk big money but many cant mk it as well. hard to find clients too. insurance and real estate companies also seem to take in any tom dick and harry, no QC at all.

any particular bank that is a fav among sme customers?

Originally Posted by stevengoh

hi guys, NTU grad here, having 2 years of experiences in another industry seeking a career switch into banking sales.

gt offered positions of a Personal Banker and a SME Banker. its 50-50 for me. pay is a strong factor of consideration.

i quite like sales and wanna chiong as much as possible when im still young. i would also like to progress further in this path.

was told by HR that a personal banker is able to earn more, is it true? any advices other than pay such as career progression and all?

thanks.

If you want high leverage commission, selling unit trust, strucutred products or credit cards to some man on the street will not make you much. Same for selling WC facilities, term loans or small mortgages for SME. You need to move to high value sales side for the money.

[stevengoh]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you wana cheong sales and intend to make serious big money, you should be targeting enterprise level sales in other industries or PB/IB in banks. Why waste time on mass market retail sales jobs?

hi i assume pb is private banking and ib is investment banking. my NTU degree is not finance or biz related, grades are ok but not stellar and i was previously from an industry totally unrelated to banking. hence cant get into IB and i think for PB, one needs to have lots of experience right?

was thinking i start from 'entry level' again and move up. and the money seems ok too, in fact more than my 'fixed pay' previously.

[stevengoh]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you want high leverage commission, selling unit trust, strucutred products or credit cards to some man on the street will not make you much. Same for selling WC facilities, term loans or small mortgages for SME. You need to move to high value sales side for the money.

hi that will come from experience right? such as being promoted to another level....

Go with where your interest is, consumer banking or business banking...

To me, i think both can be lucrative. Some people can say business banking more 'glam' or atas but if you are more interested in consumer banking, you will do better there than if you choose business banking. Thats my opinion.....

hmm actually maybe business banking may have more opportunities in terms of banks to work for i think. Consumer banking is only limited to the local banks and a few key foreign banks like hsbc/scb/citi/maybank/cimb and to a lesser extent boc.

Business banking and corporate banking on the other hand includes many offshore branches who handle subsidiaries of their MNCs etc. Apart from all the banks mentioned above you also have the 3 big japanese banks; SMBC, BTMU, Mizuho who each employ ~700 staff, then you also have a wide spread of middle eastern banks, korean banks, european banks etc all doing mainly corporate banking and investment banking etc.

Although there are many kinds of sales that can make more money, personal or commercial banker is consider not bad. Good performers can make 500k+ yearly, so also not bad as a career.