Career Choice: Consumer Banking or Business Banking?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Read the job description posted on the website. It gives a very good description of the role.

Hi, I have seen it. It's very vague and even have some other positions with exact descriptions.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I have no banking background and this seems like a good opportunity, so yes I will give it serious consideration.

Besides HSBC and UOB, does other banks have this role?

Most banks will have, either its under different term or the 'jobscope' is divided and assigned to different positions as part of their jobscope.

For business banking, i know there are broad areas like Cash Management, Loans & Financing, Trade Finance, Treasury Services and maybe more.

anyone can share briefly more about them? can i say in terms of sales, loans & financing will be the hardest among them? hows the prospects of each area or will i be able to rotate around?

appreciate useful comments, thanks.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

For business banking, i know there are broad areas like Cash Management, Loans & Financing, Trade Finance, Treasury Services and maybe more.

anyone can share briefly more about them? can i say in terms of sales, loans & financing will be the hardest among them? hows the prospects of each area or will i be able to rotate around?

appreciate useful comments, thanks.

Cash management deals more with getting the customer to open and maintain the account with the bank as their key operating account. They offer things like cash pooling among different accounts etc.

Treasury services usually involve offering FX spot/forward/swap facilities for the customers to hedge their FX exposures. This sometimes goes together with their loan / financing facilities.

Trade finance is for buying/selling things from overseas where suppliers/buyers require LCs.

Loans and financing includes your general biz term loans, overdrafts, factoring.

Usually one does everything although they are specialized product specialists for cash management and treasury to accompany a RM/hunter to market it to customer. Loans and financing / trade finance are not the hardest because they are the most needed by companies. Companies need financing to help them bridge their working capital needs.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Cash management deals more with getting the customer to open and maintain the account with the bank as their key operating account. They offer things like cash pooling among different accounts etc.

Treasury services usually involve offering FX spot/forward/swap facilities for the customers to hedge their FX exposures. This sometimes goes together with their loan / financing facilities.

Trade finance is for buying/selling things from overseas where suppliers/buyers require LCs.

Loans and financing includes your general biz term loans, overdrafts, factoring.

Usually one does everything although they are specialized product specialists for cash management and treasury to accompany a RM/hunter to market it to customer. Loans and financing / trade finance are not the hardest because they are the most needed by companies. Companies need financing to help them bridge their working capital needs.

Hi, hope my qn doesnt sound stupid, but i saw that many banks require experience for these areas even for entry-level roles. then where do people get the ' prior experience' then?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi, hope my qn doesnt sound stupid, but i saw that many banks require experience for these areas even for entry-level roles. then where do people get the ' prior experience' then?

From temp/contract positions doing these entry-level roles..

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi, hope my qn doesnt sound stupid, but i saw that many banks require experience for these areas even for entry-level roles. then where do people get the ' prior experience' then?

from my understanding account/cash management and loan & financing may be offered to ppl with no experience but not trade finance, treasury services and others.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Cash management deals more with getting the customer to open and maintain the account with the bank as their key operating account. They offer things like cash pooling among different accounts etc.

Treasury services usually involve offering FX spot/forward/swap facilities for the customers to hedge their FX exposures. This sometimes goes together with their loan / financing facilities.

Trade finance is for buying/selling things from overseas where suppliers/buyers require LCs.

Loans and financing includes your general biz term loans, overdrafts, factoring.

Usually one does everything although they are specialized product specialists for cash management and treasury to accompany a RM/hunter to market it to customer. Loans and financing / trade finance are not the hardest because they are the most needed by companies. Companies need financing to help them bridge their working capital needs.

Thanks for replying. Are you working in biz banking? Any other areas i didnt include?

Is it true that usually one does everything? I browse thru the different banks' career portal and seems like usually people just specialise in one area, even for higher levels.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Thanks for replying. Are you working in biz banking? Any other areas i didnt include?

Is it true that usually one does everything? I browse thru the different banks' career portal and seems like usually people just specialise in one area, even for higher levels.

some banks one does everything (usually the RM) but they have specialist support eg you go visit customer with the cash mgt / treasury product guy together.Usually the RM do everything, the hunters sometimes they more focused maybe just sell trade finance or just sell biz term loan.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You are missing the point, I’m not saying you cant move from CB to PB/IB in 2 years, I’m saying in my 2 years there in 3 branches I have never heard anyone including much older people make the successful transition. Many have the attitude of hoping for a move and they talk about it a lot, but they never got anywhere close.

Of course if you stay in CB long enough can make it to some branch supervisor role, but lets get real here most people do not join a bank and work that kind of crazy hours and deal with that level of stress and KPI just to become some lousy branch manager, they take it because they hope it is a door for them to land in a good position to unlock the mega bonuses.

If I had wanted to be some branch ops manager or sales team lead, I would have joined any MNC or local blue chip and I will still get the same pay and progression minus those mad hours.

I know i'm late to the fray here, but thought i'd chime in and offer some advice regarding transitions from CB to PB/IB.

By way of background, i'm currently working for an IB in HK and not in SG, but i was originally from SG, and have colleagues in the SG office so I know what goes on there too (it's exactly like HK if you're wondering).

First up, what you do in an IB or Investment Bank is raise capital for companies either via equity (e.g. IPOs that people are so fond of), or debt (bond issuances). IBs also offer strategic advice to companies for mergers/acquisitions (M&A). As you can tell the common thread here is that we advise companies and not individuals, thus the likelihood for someone who is working as a retail banker (selling investment products at branches to individuals) to make the switch over to the IB side is unlikely. Not because they aren't good, but merely because we're talking about a completely different animal altogether. A better career path for a retail banker would be to move into PB or Private Banking, which is what most of you here have already alluded to.

It's more likely for a corporate/commercial banker who constantly looks at companies' financials (which i believe another forum poster had mentioned he/she did) to make the switch over. I've had a few colleagues do this, and if you're curious as to how they did it, i'll be happy to expound on it further.

As for the question on how to enter the IB field without experience (which sounds like a chicken & egg problem; how to get the experience if you aren't already hired?), the common way that all banks hire is via internships.

These are offered to penultimate students (i.e. one year before they graduate) at universities, or any other individual that fits that criteria. This internship works as a 10-week (at some IBs it may be less) rotation between IB groups, wherein the IB will treat you as an analyst (the starting level for every investment banker) and see how well you can do the job. After the completion of the internship, if you're liked by the people you work with, the IB will extend an offer to you for a full-time position. This is the how banks typically fill 80-90% of their incoming analyst class (or new hires) every year. If there's still a shortage of new analysts, they will recruit new analysts directly from the schools, without the internship process.

Now the brutal truth. IBs tend to be elitist, and that is true. They will tend to hire more from top universities around the world (and they do hire from SMU & NUS as well) but will not do so if you did not attend university. Now before you gather your pitchforks and cast stones, there is a reason why this is so: Familiarity. This one is important. If you're going to be working with someone for 100 hours a week, you'd want to make sure you like working with him/her. That's what the internship is all about; it's speed dating for 10 weeks. If I just can't get along with you for 10 weeks, I wouldn't want to be hanging out with you for the next 3 years. Now given that there are so few places in IBs, they can't unfortunately extend an internship offer to everyone. How would you filter then? You'd pick people whom you know were smart, and had a track record of success. I.e. you'd pick people from the schools you were from. It's a cycle really; alumni from your school pick you, you pick former classmates/current students from your school, so on and so forth.

Now is this the best way to do it? Not necessarily. But it works, and so life goes on. The obvious question here is: "Does that mean if i'm not from a Target school (i.e. the schools from which most investment bankers come from) that I have no chance?". Short answer, is no. You do have a chance, you just need to work harder at it. Not at school, but by networking. Once again, if you're interested I can expand on this, but I just wanted to say that it's possible, and there are many others that have done so.

Apologies for the long post, but just thought it might be helpful for those that don't have any idea about the industry, and would like to learn more.