Salary.sg Forums

Originally Posted by anon

i work in a mid-office of an IB, have working knowledge in all kinds of financial instruments and the kinds of products that banks sell (whether to retail or institutional).

personally having -
1) seen some of the products being traded,
2) read and studied quite a bit on financial services and the products they sell (and the kind of products a "banker" might have to sell to the average joe/jane),
3) having friends who are retail "bankers",
4) having tried out and disliked the retail insurance business in SG, not to mention, doing the simple math to see how a customer can have their eyeballs screwed out...

- i feel that rather have studied a little harder and went to study engineering or IT instead of finance in school; although in hindsight without my financial background i might not have learnt the simple (decent) principles of it.



as an advice, i would recommend you NOT to take #1 and #2. because both will still require you to sell sub-standard products to your customers (who might be your family/friends/friend's friend), you must ask yourself if you are willing to do that. it's usually the sub-standard products (insurance cash value plans, unit trusts) that are the hot-sellers in the insurance & retail banking sector because commissions very good. selling deposits and term insurance won't make you a lot of money.

it's apparent i do have a bias towards retail bankers and insurance agents, mainly because i know what they do/sell and i know they can never give me quality (and objective) financial advice.

but if you still want it, then you should take #1 over #2. reason being, ANYBODY can be an insurance agent (seriously.) but banks won't just take any mother-son/daughter in; and that in bank sales you might take over an existing portfolio or of course have customers come to you, hence you get to meet people.

objectively speaking - do consider this as well. financial services (with the exception of loansharks and maybe vanilla moneylending?) are gaining more and more regulatory oversight - what this means is that there's a shitload of paperwork & do's and don'ts, and of course with the advent of the DNC list - just see how happy your peers are when they register, and think of the **** you have to do in order to cold-call prospects (especially if you are an insurance agent).

as for your objectives of meeting people and dispensing good financial advise (or rather, having in-depth knowledge on personal financial/risk planning, investments, etc) - you don't have to be in the financial services industry to attain both.


of course both are still honest jobs - nobody pins the fault on the corner stall uncle selling cheap cigarettes if his 20-year old regular suddenly contracts lung cancer.

Originally Posted by solution9

Ya because I am willing to "chiong", so I like to know whether to "chiong" into which company is better. $$ will be my number one factors to consider. But by you saying: "For sure being a PB to the general sounds more prestige as compare to insurance agent but the pay off is much more rewarding".

You are referring to banker or insurance agents more rewarding?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

There's a saying: the grass is always greener on the other side

Make sure you find out fully about what you will be expecting in sales. It may look glamorous on the front but to succeed in it is definitely not an easy job.

If you are really set to go into financial sales, my advise would be to join your friend in the insurance industry. Much more hard work is require as compare to PB but there is a higher growth on the long run. For sure being a PB to the general sounds more prestige as compare to insurance agent but the pay off is much more rewarding.

You have more control of yourself as insurance agent but that per say means more discipline is required from you.