Does anyone work in the 'city' as a banker/trader/whatever?

[dowie]

My friend, his dad is a banker and he only did GCSE's.

Worked his way up and got there, now he is planning on getting an M5 or an XKR.

Yes there are plenty of salesmen/brokers etc.. who started out when they were just 16. There are likely a fair few middle management types in operations/back office who have been there since they left school and are now earning a decent six figure sum.

Though these days a large % of operations staff will have degrees, to get into the front office at a large bank you'll generally need a 2.1 from a top uni and ideally have had a summer internship.

Depends on what area you wish to go into. I've got my first interview coming up with a very large insurance company for a job that would lead me into becoming a fund manager.

[...]Obviously having higher levels of certified education will by no means harm you, but a great deal of the guys earning big bucks don't have university degrees.[...]

Really isn't the case any more - perhaps a few of the old school broker types... but basically front office requires a degree these days.

You're interviewing for a long only fund at an insurance company? its not necessarily comparable to say sales&trading at a large investment bank or working for some west end hedge fund in terms of job requirements and/or remuneration.

 

[Twinblade]

My sister is a investment banker and her husband is... something similar (i forget the name) and from what i can tell they're considered pretty good at it (my sister has been headhunted by the two previous companies she works for). They share a house right next to central London and work in central.

The hours are nowhere near as harsh as people claim, it's very easy to persuade them down to the pub and they're always 'about' during sociable hours. But they're intelligent, and i mean incredibly intelligent. They also 'think' about work a lot of the time, they'll always have some form of contact to their workplace with them. It doesn't eat their lives any more than my much less lucrative job (teacher), but i doubt i'm anywhere near creative, dedicated and intelligent enough to hold down their jobs.

In my experience it was the traders that spent the majority of the time at work, as for keeping in touch with work, where I was I wasn't allowed to go anywhere without my work phone, and whilst it wasn't a constant problem, if I didn't get atleast one call every half hour I could tell that something wasn't right back at the office.

There are a lot of intelligent people in the industry, but at the same time there are just as many idiots, and I mean some of these people you would have to think, how the hell did you get where you are.

Arrogance goes a long way in certain areas.

 

[alx]

Echo pretty much what has been said here. I worked in the industry (M&A) for a period until a few years ago, worked very long hours and resulted in me spending more time on airplanes and in hotel rooms that I did at home with my family.

Once my first born turned 1 I decided I had spent too much time away from my family and resigned my position. I was earning very good money, not as much as some of my colleagues but more than enough, but was working 18 hour days if you factored in travelling and that wasn't the life I wanted, as money isn't everything. Some of my colleagues were clearing twice what I was earning and not one of them had a degree, one of them got into the job by accident, coming from a job as a secretary witin the firm.

Now I am a lot happier, working a traditional 9-5 job earning a reasonable salary for an Insurance firm. I go home at the end of the day, see my family and enjoy life a lot more, something you would expect someone approaching 30 to do.

A few of my friends from uni went into M&A after graduating - as you say it's hellishly long hours but they do get paid well. It's all about the work/life balance and what you want. When you're earning 6 figure salaries after 3 years you don't tend to complain much .

They didn't get firsts either (2:1s in Business Administration) but during their degree they did do two 6 month work placements at some of the big investment banks in London which always helps.

 

[gam3r]

I've always been curious about a banker's life; investment banking, the career, the lifestyle and working as a trader.

I am aware it takes a lot of hours, little to no time to yourself, a lot of stress but obviously this can be pay off if you're good.

So does anyone work in the city in banking? How easy is it to get in to? What would i need to do?

I'm sure this thread would enlighten many people.

I work for a tier 1 Swiss Investment Bank here in London. I work in fixed income, with the traders who trade bonds/cds/swaps/cdo etc...and the hours are extremely long.

I have seen people from IBD sleeping on the sunbeds in the banks gym mid day in their suits!

Actually when you say investment banking and trading, these are two different things entirely.

No one walks into a bank and just becomes a trader..

Most the traders I work with have a degree in either Maths or Engineering.

 

[Manics]

I think it is - or we'd all be doing it. You've not made it, neither have I...

You don't just walk into a job as a top trader in a decent bank and earn a pile of money. Not unless you are very good.

Suggest you read "CityBoy: Beer & Loathing in the square mile" if you want a first hand, recent account of entering into what you see as an elitist club....half of them don't even know anymore than you about trading.

 

[dowie]

I started job hunting in finance when it was pointed out to me that 'what better industry could there be to make money in than one that is entirely based around money.' My father is an IFA, which was once a great profession - you could earn a boatload of money if you had rich clients and set their investments up with great portfolio managers charging commission as low as 3-4% per investment. Sadly that industry is being hit very hard by the Retail Distribution Review to the point where it will become difficult for financial advisers to even consider charging commission above 0.5%.

This isn't a bad thing - a large % of IFAs are nothing more than salesmen and the earnings are pretty much unwarranted these days. You might as well go to price comparison sites and/or buy direct from the relevant institutions.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

I think it is - or we'd all be doing it. You've not made it, neither have I...

You don't just walk into a job as a top trader in a decent bank and earn a pile of money. Not unless you are very good.

I was accepted onto a UBS graduate placement with a 2:1 from Bristol in Computer Science. Ok, Bristol is world-class, but it was still just a 2:1!

 

[Twinblade]

A few of my friends from uni went into M&A after graduating - as you say it's hellishly long hours but they do get paid well. It's all about the work/life balance and what you want. When you're earning 6 figure salaries after 3 years you don't tend to complain much .

They didn't get firsts either (2:1s in Business Administration) but during their degree they did do two 6 month work placements at some of the big investment banks in London which always helps.

It can be rewarding if you are prepared to stick to it. One of those I mentioned in my earlier post now works alone working with a select client base and that was because he earned more before he hit 30 than some will earn in a lifetime.

He is single though because he doesn't stop. He says time and time again how he envies me for "getting out" but when I tell him he should do the same if he wants the family lifestyle he reverts back to the buzz and not being able to do without earning the money he does.

As for it being hell, I knew it was that when I returned from my paternity leave after 2-weeks and was immediately packed off to Canada to meet a client in a deal that took 3-weeks to conclude before I could come home.

Family comes second in this line of work.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

.half of them don't even know anymore than you about trading.

That is false.

 

[The_Abyss]

Irrelevant, you don't need one. Don't even need a degree tbh.

Depends on what area you wish to go into. I've got my first interview coming up with a very large insurance company for a job that would lead me into becoming a fund manager. They prefer to take people on as blank slates to train them up from scratch to manage their portfolios etc.

That being said, so many of the big banks (JP Morgan Chase, Golden Sacks, Barclays Wealth etc) take influxes of applicants throughout the year to go through their ultra-competitive recruitment process.

It's all really dependent. Obviously having higher levels of certified education will by no means harm you, but a great deal of the guys earning big bucks don't have university degrees. I was told by one fund manager that they didn't really care enough about university education to offer a graduate recruitment scheme, as far as they were concerned as long as you could prove an aptitude for finance you were as qualified as anybody with a degree and to a large extent, that's true.

It's all relative to what you want to go into though. Stockbrokers hours are pretty much from the market's opening to its closing each day but the vast majority of them don't earn the phenomenal bonuses to supplement their salaries. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have forex traders who spend days on end watching monitors for slight fluctuations in currency but who earn astronomical salaries if they're good at it.

I started job hunting in finance when it was pointed out to me that 'what better industry could there be to make money in than one that is entirely based around money.' My father is an IFA, which was once a great profession - you could earn a boatload of money if you had rich clients and set their investments up with great portfolio managers charging commission as low as 3-4% per investment. Sadly that industry is being hit very hard by the Retail Distribution Review to the point where it will become difficult for financial advisers to even consider charging commission above 0.5%.

Finally, bear in mind that very few people who work the long hours and make exorbitant amounts of money in the financial sector pursue it as a lifelong career path. They get in young, make a buttload of cash and get out whilst they're still able to have some fun. Working and playing as hard as those guys do will kill you if you don't!

Commission of any level is banned under the RDR for investment products. The RDR is a good thing - it will start to get rid of financial advisers selling for commission, and actually start to encourage professionalism in the industry as advisers, shock, start to advise in return for a fixed fee. I don't see anything sad about that.

 

[StringerBell]

I was accepted onto a UBS graduate placement with a 2:1 from Bristol in Computer Science. Ok, Bristol is world-class, but it was still just a 2:1!

Which division?

 

[Theophany]

This isn't a bad thing - a large % of IFAs are nothing more than salesmen and the earnings are pretty much unwarranted these days. You might as well go to price comparison sites and/or buy direct from the relevant institutions.

Totally agree, but the really good IFAs should be able to charge higher levels of trail commission to reflect their ability to set their clients up with good investment opportunities.

Taking into account that IFAs who are negligent or screw up will likely never be able to get professional indemnity insurance again though, and thus the talent pool prunes itself, and that the FSA website lists all registered IFAs and allows anybody to see any complaints that have been made against them I can't see the need for IFAs to be killed off.

Price comparison websites may be good for sharking out a cheap deal on car insurance, but frankly speaking people want their hard earned and their investments to be looked after by professionals with experience, rather than a computer algorithm that cookie-cutter calculates risk assesses and slaps them into the ACME fund with exorbitant early-exit penalties for its consistently high returns.

 

[w11tho]

It's perhaps necessary to differentiate between "working in an investment bank" and being a trader. The competition for places, work hours and pay fall over a very wide spectrum depending on which sector of a bank you go to.

 

[The_Abyss]

Totally agree, but the really good IFAs should be able to charge higher levels of trail commission to reflect their ability to set their clients up with good investment opportunities.

Taking into account that IFAs who are negligent or screw up will likely never be able to get professional indemnity insurance again though, and thus the talent pool prunes itself, and that the FSA website lists all registered IFAs and allows anybody to see any complaints that have been made against them I can't see the need for IFAs to be killed off.

Price comparison websites may be good for sharking out a cheap deal on car insurance, but frankly speaking people want their hard earned and their investments to be looked after by professionals with experience, rather than a computer algorithm that cookie-cutter calculates risk assesses and slaps them into the ACME fund with exorbitant early-exit penalties for its consistently high returns.

Why should they charge a precentage of the funds under value as a commission? Why not charge for the services they actually provide, as in the hours they spend servicing that client / fund?

Until that is accepted, they're still nothing more professional than an estate agent.

 

[Theophany]

Why should they charge a precentage of the funds under value as a commission? Why not charge for the services they actually provide, as in the hours they spend servicing that client / fund?

Until that is accepted, they're still nothing more professional than an estate agent.

Apart from the quarterly exams required to keep their licenses etc etc?

That is the way the industry works, you'll find that most good IFAs will refund losses they make (through negligence) out of their own pockets. The reality is that the if IFAs charged by the hour for all the work required to actually get investments done the charges wouldn't likely be any lower at all.

EDIT: They're far more professional than an estate agent. An estate agent can sell you any ****ty old property and get away with it by dressing up the less desirable features. It is accepted that anybody buying a house should do their homework first, this is not the case in finance, hence the reason you enlist the services of professionals to do the leg work for you much the same as you would a solicitor or accountant. You palm your clients off into ****ty funds and investments as an IFA and you're going to lose your license very, very quickly.

 

[The_Abyss]

This is precisely the sort of attitude that the industry needs to sweep out, and rid itself of the old approach. Why should ongoing 'quarterly exams' justify taking a percentage fee approach over an approach where you actually charge a client for the work you've done for them? The very mention of the 'quarterly exams' rather than CPD already gives an idea of just how 'independent' the IFA you're talking about is.

You then say that if the IFAs charged by the hours, the charges wouldn't be lower. Well, fine, but at least they'd be charging for what they did, and the market would determine who did well and who didn't.

I made a flippant comment about estate agents, however to my shock, you're actually trying to defend it! You're actually suggesting that any client of an IFA shouldn't do their homework first. You think that people should hand over the custody of a pension fund - often with a greater value than their home (irony) to a provider without performing their own due diligence first? And their protection against this is to allow their 'IFA' to charge a % of this fund?

Wow. No wonder IFAs are struggling.

 

[Theophany]

This is precisely the sort of attitude that the industry needs to sweep out, and rid itself of the old approach. Why should ongoing 'quarterly exams' justify taking a percentage fee approach over an approach where you actually charge a client for the work you've done for them? The very mention of the 'quarterly exams' rather than CPD already gives an idea of just how 'independent' the IFA you're talking about is.

It is CPD, I was talking in general terms guessing that the majority of people wouldn't know what it stood for and I cba to explain it.

You then say that if the IFAs charged by the hours, the charges wouldn't be lower. Well, fine, but at least they'd be charging for what they did, and the market would determine who did well and who didn't.

I made a flippant comment about estate agents, however to my shock, you're actually trying to defend it! You're actually suggesting that any client of an IFA shouldn't do their homework first. You think that people should hand over the custody of a pension fund - often with a greater value than their home (irony) to a provider without performing their own due diligence first? And their protection against this is to allow their 'IFA' to charge a % of this fund?

Wow. No wonder IFAs are struggling.

The vast majority of people who 'do their homework' have no idea how the markets work and waste time of the IFAs I've worked under by trusting trashy articles in tabloid money advice sections. Would you go to a doctor and tell them how to perform an operation? No. Due diligence is required only when finding an IFA to work for you, beyond that point is the IFAs professional responsibility to ensure that the client knows everything they need to know before actioning anything. If you have to question what your IFA is doing, then my advice is get your money out whilst its still yours and find a decent IFA.

I don't speak for the vast majority of IFAs, that would be ludicrous. The firm I am currently employed by has a whopping total of two IFAs managing portfolios with a combined value of a few hundred million. Small fry in the grand scheme of things, yes, but you won't find an unsatisfied customer in the address book. The majority of them have been clients for getting on two decades now, some even longer, and not once has any kind of complaint been filed nor questions asked about commission costs. There are a lot of clients who are either currently employed in or retired from the financial sector.

People who don't have time or don't want to do their homework deal with reputable IFAs. The two IFAs I work for have consistently provided above sector average gains in almost every investment they have made for their clients over the past three years and this is not dumb luck, its experience gained from over 30 years in the industry and knowing how markets will react to certain events. The rest can deal with the morons and cretins with massive PI premiums and spend hours on the phone quibbling about trail commission, early exit penalties and the like. As far as I am concerned, the trash can be wiped out as they are detrimental to the industry, but if I had chosen a different career path in life and to stick with the company I'm at for a while longer, I'd be out of a job following the RDR as the market of IFAs will shrink into insignificance. That is not a good thing.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Which division?

Investment banking department

 

[ChroniC]

(JP Morgan Chase, Golden Sacks, Barclays Wealth etc)

Brilliant, that cracked me up! Freudian slip?

Goldman sachs.

 

[Theophany]

Brilliant, that cracked me up! Freudian slip?

Goldman sachs.

Nah, that's just what we always refer to them as where I work