What does “banking” mean, in the context of a high paying job?

[whatnoooow]

I’m obviously never going to be in this sort of role, due to having to even ask this question, but whenever high paying roles come up in conversation on MN, people tend to say “I’m, or my husband, is in banking/finance”.

But what do you actually do in these industries? It seems so vague and a bit like a secret club that plebs like me can’t know about. Dramatic, yes, but true nonetheless.

I feel like a lot of people from very working class backgrounds, ie weren’t encouraged to do well in school and weren’t advised on where education might take you due to parents simply not knowing, were never really aware of industries outside of retail or hairdressing!

When I left school, a “good job” was a receptionist, as it was seen as a step up from being the cleaner or working on a factory floor.

If anyone who works in these financial industries could give those of us need a bit of a nudge in the right direction, I’d be very appreciative!

Im sure lots of us have the drive and ambition to make better lives for our selves, which costs a hell of a lot more money than what we earn now, we just need to be guided by successful women.

My ex and a lot of his friends worked in banking/finance.

they were mostly back office. So they were computer programmers who worked on the software systems that kept the bank running from day to day.

some got quite senior.

It's a hard question to answer as it's a broad sector, but the better paid roles tend to be related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A), trading, asset management (which includes hedge funds), corporate broking and equity sales. These are basically the jobs that generate income from clients for the bank/ finance house. There is also private equity, which tends to operate at a smaller scale (a handful of partners with a smallish number of investments). There are also things like Fintech (hybrid of finance and technology) which are increasingly lucrative if you hit on a good idea but are often start ups and then there's a layer of investors who build them up. In terms of how to get into them, the answer is that you increasingly need stellar academics to get in at graduate level. There are ways to slipstream in further along the track via things like chartered accountancy or technology grad schemes or industry specialisms (I know someone who got into asset management because he knew a lot about the global mining and shipping industries at a time when mining was booming and not many people understood it). You need to be highly numerate, prepared to work v long hours and be extremely extremely thick skinned.

Making pretty power point presentations...

DH works in finance. He is a first gen immigrant with parents who didnt speak English and with a university degree from a developing country.
Finance is by no means confined to the white upper classes.

So to clarify what @Octavia64 said, I was mainly talking about what are called "front office" roles. Back office roles are somewhat easier to get into, and are still really well paid, but you're not going to get a million pound + bonus with mid tier seniority in the same way that you might in M&A or as a asset manager

Banking/finance could be anything from working in a local branch to being a trader on the trading floor. There are a whole host of jobs - call centres/HR/ER/Product Owner/Transformation/Compliance. A huge amount will work in Technology, maintaining systems, managing change, comms etc

My husband works in asset management. But banking is a very broad term. It can mean a trader, venture capitalist, someone in private equity etc. I’m a lawyer and some of my colleagues describe themselves and working in banking because they support banks in huge transactions. Basically everything @LaPalmaLlama said 😅

Either investment banking (that is where the multi millions are made) or the head office of bank (where over £100k is usual). Working in a branch or customer facing role is the poorly paid side of banking.

Tech in banking can be very lucrative due to the technicality of the roles and the fact that it’s a highly regulated and global industry. You earn loads more than managing a branch

I've worked in banking for 30 years and started in a branch. Since then I've worked institutional sales and then moved into risk management when I had my DS. I now head up a risk management team at a US bank. I agree that grad schemes are now only for those with exceptional academics, one or two extra languages and a lack of need for sleep.

banking is such a broad term. I know several people who would fall under the umbrella of “banker” but they have a variety of roles form HR to IT to sales. I think a lot of people hear banker and assume it’s like wolf of Wall Street

I know quite a few people who would say in conversation that they work 'in banking/finance' and the roles are very varied - HR at a bank, an underwriter for loans, a head of sales for a non-bank lender, a developer at a bank. So a range of things!

As others have said, it’s very broad.
Also depends on what you consider high paying.
DP and I work in finance.
We both studied business and finance in college (over 30 years ago) and our first jobs were in retail banking.
DP is a senior manager in compliance for an asset management firm, I’m mid level management in risk management in a fintech.
Our salaries are very well paying with great benefits but not a Wolf on Wall Street lifestyle. - far from it.

I think thats a bit misleading.

Back office is a term I see as all the staff that process trades and essentially the paper work of the fund managers and traders (front office) middle office is essentially everything in between back and front, (so in investment banking IT and tech might be middle office, but also front office especially for quant trading and automated trading.

These days a lot of back office jobs are offshore so you'll have a couple of oversight guys in London, a trader in London and a middle office split over in London and overseas.

When I worked in the City, we didn't even see ourselves as bankers, or working in finance, it tended to be specific to your role- swaps, equities, FX, etc.

Lots of working class Londoners and non-white people work in this industry compared to say the Media or Acting etc, as it draws a lot of intake from inner London, kids desperate to earn big money. A clerk working in an admin role in back office can still earn 50 grand , which is a lot for doing essentially admin.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Still clear as mud to me, so obviously not something I could thrive at 😂

I work in investment banking. I'm in interest rate sales for corporate clients. Essentially, my job is to talk to clients to are borrowing billions of pounds and worried about the impact that fluctuating interest rates will have on the cost of them servicing that debt. I help them to manage that risk by selling them hedging products, usually interest rate swaps, which fix their interest rate for a specific period. There are lots of other more complicated things they can do which I can put together for them, but essentially, I'm a bit like a mortgage broker for FTSE 250 companies.

Have a look at some of the job descriptions on here for examples.

https://jobs.citi.com/search-jobs?acm=ALL&alrpm=ALL&ascf=%5B%257B%2522key%2522:%2522custom_fields.CustomTheme%2522,%2522value%2522:%2522Early+Career%2522%257D%5D#welcome

I don’t work in banking but my husband does. He managed a hedge fund for 20 years, and is now in private equity in a director role.

If anyone asks what he does, he usually just says finance or banking for two reasons- (a most people don’t know/care what his job involves and it’s not a topic he particular likes to discuss, b) it’s less wanky than saying hedge funds/private equity.

I work in banking and I work in a senior back office role for an investment bank. These roles can be anything from worker bees in large institution, highly specialist in some niche products or a jack-of-all-trade in smaller companies. I am in the latter bit but love it because I see and do a bit of everything.

You have IT support who could work everywhere, similar to HR. Finance/Accounting is a bit more specialised but you also have the people doing normal office accounting, we have some coming from all kind of companies before.

Compliance is also a bit more specialised as the regulations are so tight.

But if I hear someone saying he/she is in banking, I normally would think first of traders, back office or customer management which can be anything from retail to large asset management, often again specialised to one area.

When you put money in the bank, it doesn’t just sit in your account. Banks use the money to invest and trade. They have to keep winning overall in order to give back the moment people have put in and turn a profit at the end of it and they are able to do this as they have access to so much capitol.

The easiest way to look at it is your pension. If you have a private pension, say with Scottish Widows, you pay in £x amount per month and you choose how you want to see that money invested. You can choose safe options or higher risk and potential higher yield options, ethical options, less ethical options etc. They will invest your money and a small amount of the return goes back into your pension pot.

Traders make a LOT of money - they basically gamble each day with the bank’s money on whether stock will go up or down in value.

Mergers and acquisitions take over companies and sell them on to other companies or break them down into component parts and sell those off at a higher rate. This is what Edward does in pretty woman, so he’s looking to buy a ship building company in the film but he doesn’t want to build ships, he wants to sell their yard to a waterfront real estate developer or something.

hedge funds are a really complicated way of investing and gambling pooled money doing lots of different things like trading and investing. It’s more risky because it’s less regulated but because it’s less regulated they can take bigger gambles and make more money.

Private bankers manage the accounts of HNW individuals on their behalf.

A lot of people working in this field will have finance or computing degree’s or a combination of both or some sort of business degree. However, you can enter with any numerate degree and work your way up but it’s a very competitive process. There was a recent book published by a young trader who gives a warts and all account. Sorry I can’t remember the name of it but basically he was a working class lad who was very driven and cut throat.

It’s this one;

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455809/the-trading-game-by-stevenson-gary/9781802062731

I worked in banking for about 5 years back in the 80s but i was a secretary/PA and although i didnt earn anywhere near the money the sales and trading people did even at my level the pay was double/treble what i could have earned outside of banking. So you could still work there in a ‘ordinary’ role and probably earn more than you do now.

not everyone fits in though - its a very fast paced environment.

Banking is pretty broad. Can be investments, management, accounting, admin, compliance, risk management, lending, credit control, statutory reporting, auditing, business development, economics, financial crime, support functions like hr ….

MY DS works in the back office of an investment bank. He works on projects that help manage equities trading. So producing the numbers for management and ensuring that the front office trades are processed and reported correctly. Most of his colleagues are accountants or IT people. He has a history degree! He's paid reasonably but his bonus is pretty modest.
The people who earn the mega bucks tend to be the traders who are a different species. Think risk takers, big egos etc. Nothing to do with background or class necessarily but you do have to be intelligent, driven and extremely quick thinking and capable with numbers.