HSBC has hired Annette Neeson as chief data officer for Hong Kong. Neeson was previously the Sydney-based head of group data management for Commonwealth Bank, according to her LinkedIn profile.

It's not just Hugh Hendry who's thrown everything in in London and is now to be found in the Caribbean looking a bit sun-bleached. Sinead Brogan, one of Bank of America's top female quants in London, is heading south too.

Brogan, who worked in BofA's electronic trading team for 11 years and who was promoted to managing director in January 2020, quit in August according to her LinkedIn profile. It says she's moving to Cayo, a district in Western Belize known for its ecological reserves and archeological sites.

As the charts below show, 'pure investment banks' tend to have a higher percentage of elite university/college graduates than banks with large retail banking arms. SHL's analysis suggested that 70% of U.K.-educated staff at Goldman Sachs come from Russell Group universities for example, compared with 31% at Lloyds Banking Group.

Similarly, in the U.S., 64% of Goldman's locally-educated staff come from private colleges and 21% come from the Ivy League, compared to just 24% and 2% respectively for Charles Schwab, which runs a large retail brokerage operation. 

The implication is that if you don't attend an elite university, you might be more successful pitching your application to a bank with a large retail arm, or simply applying for a retail banking job. There are exceptions to this rule: Barclays, which has a large retail bank in the U.K., prefers elite university students in all jurisdictions. 

It's going to be a difficult bonus round. As we go into the third quarter and banks begin their 2020 appraisal processes, it will be hard to argue that some traders haven't done exceptionally well. In the investment banking microcosm, it will also be hard to argue that those traders shouldn't get far higher pay.

The new index from banking intelligence firm Coalition illustrates the issue. In the first half of 2020, revenues in fixed income currencies and commodities (FICC) trading rose 56% versus the same period of 2019. 

In theory, Millennium Management is a place for older portfolio managers who are highly competent but who also to wear slippers and rant about the state of the world. - One hedge fund insider wryly observes that Millennium attracts 45 year-old curmudgeons while Citadel likes to hire 25 year-old superstars. 

If this is the case, Millennium's experiment with a Citadel-type hire seems to be going pretty well. Bill Pang, a 30 year-old portfolio manager at the hedge fund has just been nominated as one of Fortune's rising stars under 40 in finance, and he's one of the youngest on the list. 

When I started working in finance, nearly two decades ago, the trading floor was full of ‘Quants’. Usually with Phds, these erudite employees were extremely clever but for some reason somewhat undervalued and underpaid. Since then things have changed, and if you come across a clever person with a Phd in an investment bank or hedge fund it’s most likely their job title is ‘Data Scientist’, though you will still find a few Quants. Is there any difference, or are these just fancy job titles for what is essentially the same job?

He joined OCBC in December 2018 to oversee the development of its “innovation culture”, the bank told us at the time. The Open Vault is an innovation lab that was set up in 2016 to collaborate with fintech startups.

Wakeley did not respond to a request to comment on his next job move. OCBC hired him from EY, where he’d spent a year as a consultant and director of financial services for APAC

Prior to  moving to Singapore with EY in December 2017, Wakeley worked for Macquarie in Sydney as head of partnerships. He joined Macquarie in 2014 as digital lead for banking, following a stint in a similar role at Westpac.

As we’ve previously reported, professionals like Wakeley – who have experience within fintech innovation labs at large financial institutions – are in high demand and short supply in Singapore. This is leading to musical chairs in the sector, with senior people moving roles fairly frequently.

Innovation...

Increasing the minimum salary level for Employment Passes (EPs) in the Singapore finance sector will make it more difficult for banks to hire foreign candidates for junior back-end technology jobs, say recruiters. But the overall impact on the job market will be muted.

It's long been known that Pimco is a big payer to its big beasts. After all, Bill Gross didn't achieve net worth of $1.5bn working at Burger King. However, if you're a lowly average employee at Pimco you're going to do pretty well for yourself too. - So says the newly released annual report for Pimco Europe Ltd.

The report covers the year to December 2019, during which time Pimco employed 325 people in Europe (up from 299 a year earlier), mostly in London but also in Milan. Those 325 were paid salaries (including bonuses) totalling £172m. This works out as an average of £529k  ($703k) each for the year.

How do you get on with your exes? If your past is scattered with emotional car crashes and the crumpled results of emotional bigotry and narcissism, you might not want to run to be a managing director (MD) of JPMorgan.

In a “Coffee with The Greats” podcast in July, spotted only now by CNBC, Dimon expounded upon the idea that he wants to promote people with emotional intelligence and said that he could conduct a kind of 'emotional referencing.' 

If you work in a bank, you probably have a lot of friends. And most of them are probably either your colleagues or your clients. If you lose your job, this can make life very lonely.

Personally, I spent eight years working for a U.S. bank in London. I had a lot of friends among my colleagues. We'd talk every day, go out to lunch, go for coffee breaks and spend huge amounts of time in each other's company.

Goldman's affinity for Java is nothing new. Developers who've worked for the bank say it's known for being a 'Java house.' "Goldman is all about Java and Slang," says one, referring to the proprietary programming language that underpins the historic SecDB risk and pricing system."There wasn't much Python when I was there."

Goldman's Java affiliation is reflected in its training programs. - The 'Engineering Essentials' program open to sophomore students is entirely focused on Java and Javascript and most of the firm's pinned Github repositories are Java-related. By comparison, Goldman's Python training is oriented towards quant roles. 

Alongside Java, some of the most interesting engineering jobs also require C++, which is used both in the intepreter which interfaces with Slang and for roles in areas like high speed trading. - Goldman is currently advertising a strats role in systematic market making for which C++ is...

It's been a while since we wrote about Rob Maloney, a former MD at Credit Suisse. The last time was in 2018, when - fresh from leaving Credit Suisse after nearly two decades, Maloney became co-proprietor of Graffik Gallery, a Portobello Road-based street art gallery. Now Maloney is turning his hand to something else again.

This winter, Maloney is launching Glorious Sport, a digital lifestyle and community platform for women's sport which describes itself as a, 'A global membership platform that uses women’s sport as a catalyst to uplift & inspire.' It's already posting to its Instagram account here. 

Taking risks is a necessary part of obtaining success. We know that being comfortable or complacent can negatively affect your growth. You have to dare to take risks but don’t just take the first step, take a leap of faith in all that you do.  In your leap of faith there will be unexpected obstacles thrown your way.

The more risks you take, the more adaptable you are to certain situations because you have developed experience. If you’re not willing to risk the usual you’ll have to settle for the ordinary. 

GoBear is the latest tech company to make retrenchments. The Singapore-based consumer financial services platform announced earlier this week that it is cutting 22 employees (about 11% of its workforce) from its technology, product and operations teams.

Large banks in Singapore will likely be interested in tech candidates from GoBear, says Adam Davies, country director for Singapore at recruiters iKas. “GoBear has done well as a business, and I know of some good technologists there that originally came from the financial services industry. So I don't doubt there will be some strong techies that will get picked up by banks and other firms,” adds Davies.

Grab cut 360 people globally in June, including a small number in its Singapore headquarters, while rival Gojek also made a few Singapore cuts as part of its 430 layoffs that same month. By contrast, banks in Singapore have been hiring in technology this year. DBS is adding 360 people to its...

The US firm has, for example, two C++ developer vacancies – at associate and VP level, respectively – focused on electronic market making (EMM) and low latency trading. Both roles sit within JP Morgan’s expanding EMM technology APAC team, which is part of the software engineering group. They focus on the design, development, and maintenance of JPM’s “next generation low latency trading platform”.

To land either developer job you’ll need to be proficient in C++ as well as “multiple modern programming languages” (e.g. Python), and have expertise in “application, data and infrastructure architecture disciplines”. Other Hong Kong trading tech openings at JP Morgan include a Java software engineer, and a C++ developer for equity electronic trading.

JP Morgan may not find it entirely straightforward to hire the candidates it needs, because of the additional requirement that trading technologists are able to collaborate with the front office on a daily...

Jean-Philippe Castellani joined Deutsche Bank in London this month. According to his LinkedIn profile,  Castellani will be head of sales for Southern Europe and the "FraBeLux" region and will lead DB's FX risk management solutions teams. 

Deutsche Bank declared its intention of restarting job cuts in May 2020. However, the German bank has also been recruiting in fixed income sales and trading, where its revenues rose 25% year-on-year in the first half of 2020. Data from Burning Glass suggests that Deutsche was one of the biggest banking recruiters in the UK and the US between May and August this year. 

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com in the first instance. Whatsapp/Signal/Telegram also available. Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their...

It's going to be a difficult bonus round. As we go into the third quarter and banks begin their 2020 appraisal processes, it will be hard to argue that some traders haven't done exceptionally well. In the investment banking microcosm, it will also be hard to argue that those traders shouldn't get far higher pay.

The new index from banking intelligence firm Coalition illustrates the issue. In the first half of 2020, revenues in fixed income currencies and commodities (FICC) trading rose 56% versus the same period of 2019. 

Last year’s Credit Suisse spying scandal just won’t seem to go away.  The Swiss financial regulator Finma has now launched its own investigation into the affair, overlapping with the ongoing case at the Zurich prosecutor’s office. 

It’s not obvious that there will be any particularly severe consequences, since Finma doesn’t have the power to levy fines and the individuals involved have all long since left the bank. (In many ways, the most hurtful aspect for Credit Suisse may be to see itself referred to as “Switzerland’s Number 2 bank” in all of the news coverage).  But nonetheless, smart people in the industry will be paying attention to what happens, because this is likely to be the first time that a major financial regulator takes a really serious look at the question of messaging apps.

Citi has poached one of Goldman Sachs most senior technologists to be a managing director of its cloud computing platform.

Moe Matar joined Citi in New York last month according to his LinkedIn profile. Matar previously spent over 13 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was latterly head of cloud development and chief technology officer for the high profile cards business at Marcus, Goldman's retail bank. Matar, who had been at Goldman since 2007, was promoted to managing director last year but seems to have left all the same. 

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com in the first instance. Whatsapp/Signal/Telegram also available. Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)

Photo by Vladimir Solomyani on Unsplash

Five and a half months after the biggest ever experiment in working practices in banking began, we took the temperature of your attitudes to working from home. Over 1,000 people responded to our survey on what this period has been like. Your answers are detailed below.

The verdict: it's been tough, for all kinds of reasons.

HSBC managing director Jacqueline Loh has left the bank to set up Loh Family Office, a Hong Kong-based tax, trust and estate planning consultancy.

Low’s firm advises “second and third generation family members” who own assets in Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, and the US, according to her LinkedIn profile.