At UOB’s results presentation yesterday the bank announced that it has set up new restructuring teams to assess borrowers who have recently taken a debt holiday as the bank prepares for the gradual rollback of government debt relief measures towards the end of 2020.

Not all UOB’s restructuring positions are being filled internally, says a Singapore-based recruiter who asked not to be named.

For example, UOB is already hiring a VP in its group special asset management unit who will negotiate, execute and monitor the “progress and effectiveness” of debt restructuring plans, according to its careers website. To land this role, which sits within the wider credit and risk management department, you will need at least six to eight years’ experience in lending, credit or restructuring recovery in corporate banking or commercial banking. Insolvency and corporate finance/M&A knowledge (to help nurse back businesses) is an added advantage.

If there's a candidate with a skillset that can be sold into multiple employers in multiple sectors in late 2020, irrespective of COVID-19, it is the person with an elite education in data science and proven experience of extracting monetizable insights from real world datasets.  As a recruiter, if you can find one, it is tantamount to hitting the jackpot. As a candidate who fits this description, you have the pick of employers. 

"Data scientists are everywhere in finance," says Natalie Basiratpour. "Not just in the front office supporting trading and research, but across areas like HR too. Data is created for every single decision that's made in the world and data scientists are needed to analyze that." 

OCBC’s Global Treasury and Markets division registered a 46% year-on-year rise in operating profit (after allowances) to S$378m in H1, driven by “higher net trading income, net interest income and realised gains from its fixed income portfolio”, according to the bank’s first-half financial report.

This result means OCBC’s traders have exactly matched the numbers of their rivals at DBS, which yesterday announced a S$378m profit in Treasury Markets, but with an even higher year-on-year increase of 89%. Singapore’s other local bank, UOB, also benefited from market volatility as its Global Markets division generated a profit of S$288m for the first half, up 76%.

Overall H1 profit at OCBC, however, fell 42% to S$1.43bn as the bank set aside higher allowances against expected credit losses “in the deteriorating economic environment brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic”. Global Wholesale Banking – which houses services including investment banking and...

If you're wondering how to advance your career during the coronavirus pandemic, or are starting a new job from the comfort of your spare room rather than a bank of desks in the office, you might want to contemplate the advice offered by JPMorgan's new global head of diversity and inclusion, Brian Lamb.

Lamb himself arrived at JPM mid-pandemic, in April 2020. He previously spent over 13 years at Fifth Third Bank in Florida, where he was everything from regional CFO to head of retail banking to head of wealth and asset management.

As we reported earlier, activist investor Edward Bramson has emailed shareholders in his investment vehicle, Sherborne Investors (which owns 5.9% of Barclays shares) with some suggestions about Barclays' future strategy. Mostly, Bramson thinks Barclays should copy Deutsche Bank in slashing its sales and trading operations. Below is his letter in full.

Dear——,

UOB reported net profits of S$1.56bn in H1, 30% lower than a year ago, as it set aside more allowances in anticipation of a further deterioration in the macroeconomic outlook due to the pandemic.

The firm’s headcount was 26,495 at end-June, down 1.4% (or 377 people) from end-December. Its financial report does not explain the small decline, although recruiters attribute it to natural attrition rather than redundancies. UOB has pledged not to make layoffs during the pandemic.

There were some bright spots at UOB during the first half. The bank’s traders helped its Global Markets division generate a profit of S$288m for the half, up 76% year-on-year. “Income benefitted from the sharp downward movement in interest rates during the early part of this year”, according to the bank’s H1 financial results.

UOB is far from the only firm to make hay while financial markets are volatile during the pandemic – US banks have also seen...

What if Jes Staley wasn't the chief executive of Barclays? For the time being it's an entirely rhetorical question: Staley is the chief executive of Barclays and no date has been given for when he'll step down. In February, however, Barclays was said to be looking for a Staley replacement. And when Jes goes, Barclays' sales and trading professionals may be in for a shock.

Just how much of a shock is reflected by Edward Bramson's latest request that Barclays should cut the assets committed to its corporate and investment bank by 24% in order to increase returns. After long years of investment in sales and trading under Staley, the business still doesn't look as healthy as might be expected.

DBS has already pledged to grow its workforce in the latter months of 2020, but new data shows that the firm has already taken on more than 500 additional staff during the first half.

XTX Markets is a big deal in FX trading. With capital-constrained banks less aggressive than in the past, non-bank electronic market makers like XTX are now key players. In the 2020 Euromoney FX survey, XTX ranked third ahead of Deutsche Bank, which isn't bad when you consider that it was 12th not long ago. Last November, XTX overtook Citadel and Tower as the biggest Electronic Liquidity Provider (ELP) in Europe. Well known for its fancy office at London's King's Cross, XTX also has offices in Singapore, New York and Paris.

If you work for XTX Markets, you should therefore be working for a company on the up. In normal times, you'll also get to eat your lunch in a replica Apollo 11 landing capsule and to sleep in the office if want. But will you get paid? XTX claims to have the, "most competitive remuneration in the FinTech industry." But it doesn't pay as much as you might think.

Seven of the new roles are located in the U.S., mostly in Jersey City or New York. Another four are in Bangalore. Several are in Singapore. They include opportunities for a senior blockchain engineer, a blockchain engineering lead, multiple blockchain developers, architects for a newly established product line called 'Coin and Clearing Networks (CCN),' and roles in JPMorgan's 'Interbank Information Network (IIN),' a blockchain platform established on Quorum in 2017 with the intention of simplifying and accelerating payment services and which had over 400 participating banks at the last count. 

In February 2020, Quorum - which is a JPMorgan 'permissioned' version of the Ethereum blockchain - was rumored to be merging with Consensys, the Brooklyn-based blockchain start-up founded by Ethereum co-founder and onetime Goldman Sachs technologist Joseph Lubin. Although JPM subsequently hired some senior Consensys staff, including Ramesh Babua,...

Seven of the new roles are located in the U.S., mostly in Jersey City or New York. Another four are in Bangalore. Several are in Singapore. They include opportunities for a senior blockchain engineer, a blockchain engineering lead, multiple blockchain developers, architects for a newly established product line called 'Coin and Clearing Networks (CCN),' and roles in JPMorgan's 'Interbank Information Network (IIN),' a blockchain platform established on Quorum in 2017 with the intention of simplifying and accelerating payment services and which had over 400 participating banks at the last count. 

In February 2020, Quorum - which is a JPMorgan 'permissioned' version of the Ethereum blockchain - was rumored to be merging with Consensys, the Brooklyn-based blockchain start-up founded by Ethereum co-founder and onetime Goldman Sachs technologist Joseph Lubin. Although JPM subsequently hired some senior Consensys staff, including Ramesh Babua,...

A lot of attention has been paid recently to the experience of black people working in banking. As a Muslim with a finance career in London, I'd like to share some of the extreme prejudice I too have encountered in this industry.

A few years ago the tragic London Bridge attack happened. I was working for a large buy-side firm and it was the talk in the office. This was especially so with the floor manager in the fixed income department, who couldn't understand what Muslims had against people or in her words- "What do those people have against us?!". Whilst most people would have kept quiet or expressed their views elsewhere, the floor manager was happy to have a casual conversation in the open about Muslim people and how shariah law will take over this country...no one stepped in to tell her to stop. Not even me. Why? Because we are accustomed to this type of behaviour. It's common and you don't realise it's wrong until you leave...

When we published 2020 compensation figures for the Carlyle Group last week, some people suggested Carlyle's pay seemed reminiscent of 2006: the investment firm, which has $195bn of assets under management, is on track to pay its 1,800 staff members an average of $760k this year. However, if Carlyle pay seems extreme those same people might choke on the pay numbers coming out of rival investment firm KKR.

KKR released its global second quarter results yesterday. At the last count, it employed 1,384 people globally including 480 investment professionals, 624 'other' professionals, and 280 support staff.

Around six months into the pandemic, there's still no indication of a robust return to recruitment in the financial services industry. In July 2020, major banks advertised 54% fewer new jobs in the U.S. and 46% fewer jobs in the U.K. than in July 2019 according to data from information provider Burning Glass. If this is what a recovery looks like, it's not particularly energetic.

While there are well-publicised hiring freezes at places like HSBC, however, some banks kept on hiring throughout the virus and might be expected to continuing doing so in the months to come.

Just when you thought Grab was all about layoffs, the tech firm has added multiple Singapore-based vacancies to its careers website as it rolls out a new range of financial products. Last time we looked, on 18 June, Grab had only a handful of roles in the Republic, following its decision days earlier to make 360 redundancies, about 5% of its global workforce, as a result of the pandemic.

It’s a gruelling experience that marks a rite of passage for many young bankers – adding crazy studying hours to crazy working hours, in order to pass the examinations that finally allow you to say “actually, I’m a CFA® (registered trademark) Charterholder, you shouldn’t just use the three letters on their own as a noun” to the admiration of all around you.  And it’s about to get ever so slightly less hellishly inconvenient.

Previously, the CFA exams have been held entirely as pencil and paper tests, with the Level I exams held twice a year and the Level II and III only once.  This sometimes interacts quite poorly with the average investment banking junior’s very limited control of his or her schedule; it’s easy to get into a situation where you’re faced with the choice between missing the exam and setting back your progress by a year, or walking off a deal during crunch time, and it’s not always obvious which is the worse career move.

If you're an experienced quant applying for a new role in an investment bank, you might presume that you'll be able to walk through the interview process. Not necessarily.

In the past five years, Dirk Bester, a finance quant with a PhD in Bayesian algorithmic design, has interviewed everywhere from Barclays to Blackrock, to BNP Paribas, Cumulus, G-Research, Goldman Sachs, GSA Capital, J.P. Morgan, Man Group, Oxford Asset Management, RBC, RBS, Squarepoint Capital, Two Sigma, UBS, and...Winton Capital. Bester has written a detailed guide to his quant interview experiences and posted it to Github.  Whether you want to be a quant/strat, or you simply want to be in with a chance of remaining employed in finance in 2025, it's mandatory reading.

Bank of America has cautioned its overweight employees that they may be at more risk of the virus. 

In a memo sent to staff globally last Friday, the bank highlighted recently updated medical guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which identifies people with a body mass index (BMI) over 30 as being at particular risk from the coronavirus. U.S. staff in this and other high risk categories should contact HR, said BofA. Elsewhere in the world, the bank said it would contact team members with high risk factors and that they could work remotely for the forseeable future. 

Citadel has been shopping and Goldman Sachs appears to be its chosen aisle. The hedge fund has added numerous managing directors (MDs) from Goldman Sachs.

One of the most recent joiners is Sven Khatri, a former managing director in Goldman's strats and treasury quantitative research team. Khatri has joined Citadel as a treasury quantitative researcher according to his Linkedin profile.

After several happy weeks sitting in front of computer screens at home, crunch time is approaching for banks' virtual interns. At Goldman Sachs and elsewhere, internships finish this week. It will soon be apparent whether people are actually getting offers to return next year full-time. 

At banks like Citigroup and Moelis & Co. this won't be an issue: both have guaranteed all this year's virtual interns full time positions (subject, at Citi, to interns actually 'engaging' with the program.) Elsewhere, the situation is far more uncertain, even though most banks have proclaimed their intention of converting the same proportion of interns as usual.  

Finance recruiters in Hong Kong have not noticed a downturn in hiring since Covid-19 cases started to spike again mid-July. They say the labour market in banking remains in a similar state – depressed but not in free-fall – to before the so-called third wave. But the progress of landing a banking job is now becoming even more protracted.

Hong Kong recently experienced a 12-day streak of triple-digit Covid infections, which was only broken on Monday. Today 80 cases were reported  and the government announced that social-distancing measures will be extended by another week.

Bank of America has cautioned its overweight employees that they may be at more risk of the virus. 

In a memo sent to staff globally last Friday, the bank highlighted recently updated medical guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which identifies people with a body mass index (BMI) over 30 as being at particular risk from the coronavirus. U.S. staff in this and other high risk categories should contact HR, said BofA. Elsewhere in the world, the bank said it would contact team members with high risk factors and that they could work remotely for the forseeable future. 

Standard Chartered is making modest managerial job cuts in Singapore, but its newly granted regulatory status in the country means its local workforce, which currently stands at 10,000, should expand over the long term. The firm’s standing as a ‘significantly rooted foreign bank’ (SRFB) in Singapore will boost recruitment, could ultimately lead to new jobs in digital banking, and could make it easier for Stan Chart to transfer some operations to the Republic from Hong Kong, say recruiters.