In terms of sheer numbers of people recruited, it’s always hard to outflank the Big Four global accounting and professional services firms. EY is the smallest of the four, but it’s still a giant in terms of recruitment. And it’s kept on hiring irrespective of the pandemic.

“We’re on a fiscal year that runs from July 1 to June 30,” says Dan Black, EY’s global recruiting leader. “In our last fiscal year we hired 80,000 people globally. Granted, hiring was a little bit slower than in a normal year when we typically hire closer to 90,000 people – but not by much.” 

Deutsche Bank has got an issue: as of May 2020, it still had 13,081 job cuts left to make out of the 18,000 it announced in July 2019. Half of DB's 18,000 cuts were always due to come in Germany, where staff are being let go following the merger of Postbank with Deutsche Bank’s retail business and where the bank is now trimming 20% of branches in response to the virus, but this still leaves at least 4,000 jobs to be removed elsewhere. And actual removals may be necessary, because all of a sudden no one wants to leave.

Speaking today at Bank of America's annual financials conference, Deutsche Bank CFO James von Moltke said that Deutsche Bank is behind on its cost reduction plans. This is partly because the bank called a hiatus on layoffs during the early lockdowns, but is also because the voluntary staff turnover Deutsche Bank had counted upon to reduce its headcount doesn't seem to be happening after all. Von Moltke...

Studies have shown that higher gender diversity is linked to lower turnover, higher creativity and more innovation. Companies are looking to strategically diversify their businesses by promoting inclusion. 

The Women in Tech Virtual Career Event will enable diversity-focused recruiters to connect with unique, highly-skilled professionals in a safe and inclusive space. This unique virtual career event focuses on employers committed to diversity and inclusion across tech and financial services. 

Register early: not only will employers will have access to your resume before, during, and after the event concludes, you have access to the employer’s content and job postings beforehand also.  Chat for up to 10 minutes with each recruiter and quickly make connections that could lead you anywhere!

NatWest Markets cut another 79 people this morning. 

Insiders at the bank say 79 members of the capital markets division, principally in the UK and in sales and trading roles have been informed that their jobs are at risk as the bank "right-sizes" under its new CEO.

Yesterday was a bad day for anyone who hold bank stock as a legacy of deferred bonuses. Following an epic investigation by Buzz Feed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists it appears that banks that promised in the past to have nothing more to do with money laundering may not have followed through.

Buzz Feed and the journalists scrutinized 2,100 of the suspicious activity reports (SARs) that are submitted by banks' compliance departments to regulators when they unearth evidence of wrongdoing. Even though the SARs investigated were just a tiny proportion of the total filed between 2011 and 2017, they suggested that many banks aren't as irreproachable as might be expected after years of fines and hefty investments in compliance. 

Yesterday was a bad day for anyone who hold bank stock as a legacy of deferred bonuses. Following an epic investigation by Buzz Feed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists it appears that banks that promised in the past to have nothing more to do with money laundering may not have followed through.

Buzz Feed and the journalists scrutinized 2,100 of the suspicious activity reports (SARs) that are submitted by banks' compliance departments to regulators when they unearth evidence of wrongdoing. Even though the SARs investigated were just a tiny proportion of the total filed between 2011 and 2017, they suggested that many banks aren't as irreproachable as might be expected after years of fines and hefty investments in compliance. 

How are tech job postings trending in the financial services industry? We just launched The Financial Services Tech Job Report - analyzing job posting data to provide a fuller picture of how employers are navigating the current landscape.

The report analyzes technology job postings from financial services organizations across the first seven months of 2020 and includes the fastest-growing locations, employers, occupations and skills for three of the primary global financial markets: United States, United Kingdom and Singapore.

As hiring warms up after a year haunted by COVID-19, Bank of America has taken the opportunity to recruit two senior women from JPMorgan in New York City.

Nikki Acton, head of global liquidity solutions at JPMorgan is returning to Bank of America later this year as head of cross channel international sales. Jean Mah, an equity sales veteran who spent over two decades at JPMorgan is also understood to be joining Bank of America in a similar role.

Senior people at Goldman Sachs are busy making calls. They're not just calling clients and colleagues who are working from home: 2020 is a partner year at Goldman Sachs, and the cross-ruffing process by which new partners are chosen is happening behind the scenes.

"Cross-ruffing hasn't really been impacted by the pandemic," says one Goldman insider. "It always takes place by phone, so this is normal. Cross-ruffing means Goldman's current partners nominate new partners and discuss their nominations among themselves (with partners who've worked with the nominees) until a shortlist emerges. The process is highly secretive: none of Goldman's current MDs know if they're on the list or not. The final choices will be made public in November, around the time of the U.S. election. 

7. High-dimensional: Instead of "complicated." ("This is a very high dimensional deal.")

8. High order bit: Most important thing. ("Slide 65 is the highest order bit in the presentation.")

9. Impedance matched: Instead of "compatible." ("These companies are highly impedance matched." 

Just as London bankers got accustomed to fraternizing with clients over Zoom, it seems the virtual era may be coming to an end. It's September, COVID cases are ticking-up, but bankers who can are being urged to get out and to meet clients face to face when they possibly can.

We spoke to multiple bankers and salespeople in London who said face to face meetings are becoming the new normal - and that the more bankers who meet face to face, the more that others feel pressured to do the same. 

Morgan Stanley made a major new appointment to its London FX team nearly a year after ousting traders who concealed losses of up to $140m. 

Manikandan Natarajan has joined the U.S. bank as head of emerging markets foreign exchange (EM FX) FX trading in EMEA. A former partner managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he was global head of FX derivatives trading until April 2017,  Natarajan spent the past two years in India. Morgan Stanley has lured him back to London again.

The move to Paris isn't likely to be entirely popular with the affected salespeople, most whom aren't French, comparatively few of whom speak French, and many of whom will - initially at least - 'commute' back and forth to London at weekend to visit their families, something that could be complicated by quarantine restrictions.

That JPMorgan has been compelled to prime its people for an imminent move reflects the deterioration in Brexit negotiations, where even the inadequate equivalence regime seems unlikely to function as hoped. The 200 movers are unlikely to be JPMorgan's last: the bank will have space for 450 people in its new building (or would have had space for 450 before social distancing requirements) and another large chunk of people in markets roles are understood to be moving in future. 

For the moment, JPMorgan is trying to soften the blow. The 200 London-based salespeople who move are being offered six months...

Gardella was promoted to executive director at Morgan Stanley in January 2018   but will now be joining Wells as a managing director in November in what is a newly-created role.

At Morgan Stanley he was most recently head of debt capital markets (DCM) for Financial Institutions in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, according to his Linked In profile.

The arrival of Gardella marks another step in the build-out by Wells of its Paris-based subsidiary Wells Fargo Securities Europe (WFSE) which is led by Nick Bennett, who is also head of markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

The bank recently secured its license in the French capital to provide capital markets and investment banking services to its European and international customers who require access to the EU and the European Economic Area post-Brexit.

One Paris-based headhunter said the bank is building out ‘a small team’...

It's become a cliché to say that you need to study for 300 hours if you want to pass each CFA exam. However, like all cliché's it's true. Four years ago, the CFA Institute issued the following handy graphic after the June 2015 exams showing how long students had studied for.

Source: CFA Institute

It says that  students study for 300 hours at least.

If anything, 300 hours may not be enough. Speaking on forums, past CFA exam candidates say they only passed when they increased their study time considerably. "The first time I studied about 300 hours. The second time I increased it to around 400," says one candidate who was successful on round two. "I spent more than 800 hours studying and I'm not sure I can do better next time," says another candidate who failed.

Naturally, there are always people who claim to have studied less. One candidate told us he passed CFA Level I after studying for just 30 hours and using...