Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)’s Hong Kong operation has not yet paid bonuses for 2020 to its staff , making it the second big Chinese bank in Hong Kong to delay its annual payouts.

Julius Baer is quietly adding relationship managers in Singapore this year, although it has not returned to the heady hiring it experienced under former CEO Boris Collardi, who left in late 2017.

Among the latest recruits in Singapore is Bipin Jacob Mathew, who joined earlier in June as a director, having previously been with Standard Chartered since 2016. His move follows the hire this month of Rahul Malhotra as head of global India and developed markets. Malhotra, formerly a leading JP Morgan banker, has a remit that includes helping to drive Julius Baer’s substantial ambitions on the subcontinent.

If you want a job at Goldman Sachs when you leave university, it will help if you study one of two things: business and economics or a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degree. 95% of the summer interns arriving at Goldman Sachs this week have studied one of these two subject areas.

In a blog post welcoming its new summer intern class, Goldman said around 50% have studied business and economics and around 45% have studied a STEM subject. Just 5% have studied liberal arts. 

In light of today's report on the comparative advantages still enjoyed by mediocre men over exceptional women in finance, it's worth considering how women can be helped to succeed. Men are an important part of the equation, especially men in the home.

Speaking at this week's Women in Quantitative Finance Conference, a selection of top female quants said people with a Y chromosome had been crucial to their progress. 

Multi-strategy hedge funds like Balyasny, Citadel and Millennium have been among the big recruiters of the past few years. Now, another expansionary hedge fund is joining the hiring jamboree.

As we reported last month, hedge fund Schonfeld Strategic Advisors has hired Colin Lancaster, the former head of macro strategies at Balyasny and Citadel, to form a new macro business, split between New York, London and Miami. Lancaster is joining in July and sources say he's expected to build a team of up to 50 people in the next few years - on top of the 11 people he's bringing across from his previous employer, Matador Investment Management. 

There’s no “I” in team, but there’s a “me” right at the start of “megabucks”.  According to Bloomberg, the IPO of Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd is going to catalyse a profit of nearly $1bn for Deutsche Bank.  And although every successful trade has many claimants, it appears that this one is almost entirely the work of Mark Spehn, whose LinkedIn describes him as a “Distressed Debt Trader / Risk Manager” in Deutsche’s London office.

That intriguing double job description might be the key to the success, because this looks like a trade which would have required some careful risk management over the course of its life.  Mr Spehn originally started to assemble the position in 2016, when Zim had emerged from a debt restructuring but seemed to be doomed by continued stagnation in shipping rates.  The whole secret to distressed debt trading in that sector is being able to wait out the cycle, and of course the disruption to global...

Yesterday, we heard that Deutsche Bank was setting the “norm” for future remote working at between two and three days a week, and that detailed arrangements would be sent out to each division in due course.  In America, those memos have already gone out, and it seems that in the New York front office two or three days at home might be a rarity.

The memos came from Drew Goldman and James Davies of the investment banking division and from Mark Fedorcik and Ram Nayak for sales and trading.  It appears that the Deutsche schedule for return is somewhat later than other Wall Street banks – they are advising everyone to make plans to “re-establish a presence in the office” by Labor Day in September.  But, the expectation is that “risk takers” will be in the office full-time, that “client facing staff” will be allowed to work remotely “about one day a week” and support staff will have “a level of remote working” which remains...

However, there is another option. You can leave banking for corporate development. You won't ever be paid carried interest, but you won't be paid badly, and you might end up with a lot less work to do.

Is that really what you want? One corporate dev type has taken to Reddit to complain that while his job pays him well, he's having an identity crisis because he doesn't have much to do. He says he feels "demoralized and unfulfilled" by virtue of being "over-compensated and under-utilized" and is having an identity crisis as a result. 

While many of the responses aren't exactly sympathetic, the original poster might be onto something. Writing here a few years ago, a former junior banker turned corporate development professional said the work in corp dev is much more focused (no pitching) and strategic than in banking, although the work can be more in-depth. This is confirmed by a former analyst at a boutique firm who moved to a corporate dev...

HSBC has been looking for a permanent replacement for Peter Enns, its former co-head of advisory and investment banking and advisory, and it might be closing to landing one.

The bank is understood to be talking to Matthew Ginsburg about a senior role within global banking. Talks are ongoing that could involve Ginsburg become global co-head of HSBC’s advisory and investment banking coverage business, based in Hong Kong, according to two sources.  HSBC declined to comment.

However, there is another option. You can leave banking for corporate development. You won't ever be paid carried interest, but you won't be paid badly, and you might end up with a lot less work to do.

Is that really what you want? One corporate dev type has taken to Reddit to complain that while his job pays him well, he's having an identity crisis because he doesn't have much to do. He says he feels "demoralized and unfulfilled" by virtue of being "over-compensated and under-utilized" and is having an identity crisis as a result. 

While many of the responses aren't exactly sympathetic, the original poster might be onto something. Writing here a few years ago, a former junior banker turned corporate development professional said the work in corp dev is much more focused (no pitching) and strategic than in banking, although the work can be more in-depth. This is confirmed by a former analyst at a boutique firm who moved to a corporate dev...

The past year of Zoom interviews in banking have been something of a gift for banking recruitment. Instead of concocting excuses for leaving the office and scheduling one or two interviews a week, candidates have been able to switch into another screen briefly for an interview and then carry on with their work. By all accounts, this has led to a lot more interviewing than was previously the case.

However, headhunters say the Zoom interview process has one key failing: many firms have remained reluctant to shunt candidates over the line without meeting them face to face. Therefore, a new and semi-novel stage has been introduced into the financial services interview process. - The face to face interview has made a comeback.

As a senior banker, I've interviewed a lot of young people for jobs in banking. Many of them have told me that they don't want to work late. I've also experienced this attitude on the job, and believe me - it does not make you look good.

A few years ago, there was an occasion when I was in urgent assistance at 7pm London time. I asked an intern for help. All that was required were a few corrections to a presentation and that he send it around internally. It was another 30 minutes of hard work, give or take. And he declined to do it.

 After listening to my request for help, he informed me: “Before I picked up the phone I was actually on my way out of the office. I have a date tonight and I can't be late. Can this wait until tomorrow?” No, it could not.

Call me old school, but I was in shock. Why work hard to get a job in banking in the first place?

Banks partly have themselves to blame. In order to attract young talent...

James Chiu’s early career in finance came to an ignominious end. Between 2008 and 2013, he worked for Jump Trading in Chicago, where he became one of the biggest counterparties for S&P futures. However, Chiu’s time at the high frequency trading firm ended ignominiously with a $155k penalty and a two month suspension from the CME Group Inc. trading floors for a violation of the rules that included entering orders for stock index figures and then cancelling them again less than a second later.

Following that rebuke, Chiu founded Vatic Investments in 2014. An automated liquidity provider for the futures markets, Vatic has spent the past eight years making markets and investing employees’ money, but is expected to open to outside money later this year. And after a very long period in stealth mode, Chiu is embracing publicity and he’s hiring.

Bankers are leaving Credit Suisse and their chosen alternative employer seems to be...Jefferies. First, Alejandro Przygoda, the Swiss bank's global head of financial institutions group (FIG) went to Jefferies along with two directors and an MD. Now, Armando Rubio-Alvarez, the head of Credit Suisse's FIG business in Europe, is joining Jefferies too.

The CS bankers' choice of Jefferies is notable because if you're a banker looking for a new seat, Jefferies has something very particular to recommend it: it has a reputation for paying on more of an 'eat what you kill' basis than other banks. - If you move to Jefferies and you bring in good revenues, you should (theoretically) be rewarded accordingly.

Nonetheless, no intern should take a return offer for granted. We spoke to last year's successful interns (all of whom were remote) about how they played-it. This was their advice...

1. Get familiar with Excel and PowerPoint before the internship 

You'll be using these a lot, and you won't have a chance to completely familiarize yourself with them during the training, says one successful markets intern.

2. Be ready to multitask

"If there was anything I needed to learn to do quickly during my virtual internship it was multitasking," says an intern who joined a U.S. bank's IBD team last year. It was his most precious skill, he added. Another intern pointed out that short tasks can easily mount-up if you're not used to juggling and dealing with quick deadlines.

3. Be a prolific networker, especially if you're in a markets business 

"Networking has to be highly prolific," says one incoming sales and trading analyst...

As we reported last week, Deutsche Bank is asking its staff who move to Frankfurt from London to accept a 25% salary cut. While various people have suggested this is unfair, figures for average total compensation (salaries plus bonuses) at Goldman Sachs in London versus the European Union for 2020 suggest it might be perfectly reasonable after all.

Goldman released its 2020 accounts for Goldman Sachs International (based in London) and Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE (based in Frankfurt, with branches in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, and Paris) over the weekend. They revealed that average pay in London was in fact 27% higher than in Frankfurt last year. - Goldman's average London employee earned $523k (£370k) for 2020; its average Frankfurt employee earned $411k (€336k).

Literally everyone in banking, if they’re honest, will admit to having at one time or another fantasised about standing up at a roadshow and telling some unfortunate investor exactly what they think of them and their stupid questions.  Chamath Palihapitiya, the tech industry rebel and internet loudmouth, seems to have managed to live the dream at a meeting to promote the SPAC he was launching to float Virgin Galactic.  After a sweary tirade, he concluded by telling a conservatively dressed investor that he was “lazy”, “hadn’t read the prospectus” and that “I don’t even want your [redacted] money”.

It was a high risk strategy, but the thinking seemed to have been a little bit more strategic than the language might have suggested.  As someone else in the room at the time recounts, the victim was a mutual fund manager, well past middle age and was beginning to ask a series of value-investing type questions about financial...

Following last week's May sitting of the new-look CFA® exams, CFA candidates are taking to internet chatrooms to discuss their 2021 CFA exam experience.

As we've reported here before, CFA Institute has switched to a new exam format this year. Instead of being administered on paper, exams are now computer-based, but must still be taken by candidates sitting in physical exam halls. Instead of taking place on particular dates, the exams are now spread over a few days (Level I exams were May 18–24, Level II were May 25–29, and Level III were May 25–27). And instead of comprising hundreds of questions, the exams have been pruned, so that Level I now has 180 multiple choice questions instead of 240, Level II now has 88 questions instead of 120, and Level III comprises '8-11 vignettes', an essay section, and 44 multiple choice items, compared to as many as 120 multiple choice questions in the second part of the exam...

As client dining and social events open up again, it might be a good moment for everyone who's spent the past 15 months hanging around at home to take some refreshers on restaurant etiquette. Or, at least, to remember not to wave a telephone about in a public location in a manner that might lead someone to think they're being filmed.

A senior banker in New York has been accused of just such inappropriate behavior in a restaurant by Corinna Sayn-Wittgenstein, a Danish-German entrepreneur who's possibly best known for her relationship with Juan Carlos, the ex-king of Spain.  

Multi-strategy hedge funds like Balyasny, Citadel and Millennium have been among the big recruiters of the past few years. Now, another expansionary hedge fund is joining the hiring jamboree.

As we reported last month, hedge fund Schonfeld Strategic Advisors has hired Colin Lancaster, the former head of macro strategies at Balyasny and Citadel, to form a new macro business, split between New York, London and Miami. Lancaster is joining in July and sources say he's expected to build a team of up to 50 people in the next few years - on top of the 11 people he's bringing across from his previous employer, Matador Investment Management. 

Following last week's May sitting of the new-look CFA® exams, CFA candidates are taking to internet chatrooms to discuss their 2021 CFA exam experience.

As we've reported here before, CFA Institute has switched to a new exam format this year. Instead of being administered on paper, exams are now computer-based, but must still be taken by candidates sitting in physical exam halls. Instead of taking place on particular dates, the exams are now spread over a few days (Level I exams were May 18–24, Level II were May 25–29, and Level III were May 25–27). And instead of comprising hundreds of questions, the exams have been pruned, so that Level I now has 180 multiple choice questions instead of 240, Level II now has 88 questions instead of 120, and Level III comprises '8-11 vignettes', an essay section, and 44 multiple choice items, compared to as many as 120 multiple choice questions in the second part of the exam...

Aspect Capital, the quant hedge fund that hires students who haven't been to university into apprenticeship roles, is expanding its apprenticeship programme to take on more trainee data scientists.

Aspect currently has nine apprentices, hired in previous years to work in roles across legal, data and trading support. It plans to increase their number in future (although it isn't saying by how much), and will recruit more of them onto a degree-level apprenticeship in data science and analytics named the 'Advanced Data Fellowship' program, run in combination with training provider Multiverse.

Multi-strategy hedge funds like Balyasny, Citadel and Millennium have been among the big recruiters of the past few years. Now, another expansionary hedge fund is joining the hiring jamboree.

As we reported last month, hedge fund Schonfeld Strategic Advisors has hired Colin Lancaster, the former head of macro strategies at Balyasny and Citadel, to form a new macro business, split between New York, London and Miami. Lancaster is joining in July and sources say he's expected to build a team of up to 50 people in the next few years - on top of the 11 people he's bringing across from his previous employer, Matador Investment Management. 

If you aspired to get a junior job in investment banking in 2018 or 2019, but you fell at one of the multiple hurdles in the banking recruitment process, then you may be in luck. This year's booming demand for junior bankers means people who were rejected in previous years, and who are now doing something completely different, are back on banks' radar. 

In their desperation to fill junior seats, headhunters told Bloomberg that banks are scouring accountancy firms, regional banks, and consultancies for potential junior investment banking talent. Many of these places are repositories of the sorts of people who wanted to work in banking when they left university, but who were felled by Hireview digital banking interviews or inadequate CVs. They're now being offered a once in a generation opportunity to get back in the game as banks add hundreds of new junior staff in response to booming business and complaints from existing...

The head of corporate finance at one firm said he was looking forward to travelling to see clients again.  “During Covid, if I wanted to travel to Europe I would have to fly to Dubai, where I would have to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks, then when I arrived in the UK, I’d have to undergo another quarantine regime.”

According to the SFC, senior executives of a licensed corporation with global or regional roles are entitled to two trips per month. The new rules cover ‘global or regional heads or senior executives of financial institutions', allowing bankers to visit Hong Kong twice a month, or executives to return to the city from foreign business trips with similar frequency.

The increased mobility has been welcomed by both bankers and headhunters, who believe it will lead to the resumption of relocations.  “Moves that involve relocations from the UK and the US have been completely on hold. This will unlock that,” said one London-based...