~ by a banking graduate.
Get rich quick kids at university think they’re smart by going into corporate banking and so become lured into that ‘dream job’ in lofty impressive granite towers in the big city CBDs.
The get rich quick kids think that by doing maths, science, commerce double majors that investment banks will want them. Financial services company Citi Australia target graduates with strong mathematical, computing and quantitative skills as well as graduates from business disciplines like commerce and finance.
About 180,000 tertiary students graduate in Australia each year so competition for coveted positions offered by big corporates, especially banks is fierce. There is massive oversupply of candidates and many are foreign so will do anything. This dumbs down the corporate internships on offer and the starting wages.
You work like a dog doing all the drudgery on-one else wants to do. You have to what they call, “multi-task”. And it’s all on the fat promise of status and big salaries.
It’s a con to get young bright recruits in early so the big banks can mould naive ambitious minds to be attuned to the bank’s way of thinking and to its values-based culture – or rather lack thereof.
Lately, big banks, especially big international banks want computer science degrees so they can manipulate trading markets and exchange rates using clever algorithm formulae.
So banks like JP Morgan and Citi Group are in bed with the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales to entice their top graduates.
Citi’s campus recruitment manager, Tamaryn Bliss, says the bank receives 50 applications for each summer intern position available. Citi has long supported the University of NSW’s industry co-operative program for finance students, but increasingly looks computer science and engineering recruits.
Citi hosts a trading floor tour for members of UNSW’s maths society.
Beware of banking HR departments.
It can be tricky for the big banks to find the right candidates. They want super smart people who blitz psychometric tests who are highly motivated winners, but who will do anything to win and who team players who don’t question. Candidates must be able to work weekends unpaid and want even more work!
And the clever algorithms pay big dividends for the big banks. This week it has been revealed that global banks Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Citicorp, UBS, Bank of America and the Royal Bank of Scotland all pleaded guilty to US Justice Department charges of rigging foreign currency (forex) markets using algorithms and dodgy collusion.
Another case of greedy banks gambling.
These global banks have been fined $US6 billion ($7.6 billion) – Barclays fined $2.38 billion, Citigroup fined $1.27 billion, JPMorgan Chase fined $892 million, UBS fined $545 million, Bank of America fined $205 million and Royal Bank of Scotland fined $669 million. None can be trusted.
These banks will also pay more than $US1.8 billion to the US Federal Reserve over “unsafe and unsound practices” in forex markets.
Forex traders from the banks had met in an online chatroom brazenly named “the Cartel” to set rates that cheated customers while adding to their own profits in the massive global currencies market.
Career blown, 4 years at uni blown, reputation blown. Start from scratch at 25?
Global banking exposed for “unsafe and unsound practices”. It is no wonder why the banking industry has a bad reputation. Where’s that latest interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank being passed on?
Banks are happy to sack thousands of locals for outsourced foreigners in the Philippines, and to repossess 6th generation farming properties when in times of drought. Banks are more than happy to accept 100% government guarantees and bailouts when economic crises hit.
Remember Storm Financial, Banksia, Pyramid Building Society, Lehman Brothers?
No, graduates don’t study history – that’s Humanities.
Remember Sydney’s young dodgy banking financial adviser, Don Nguyen of the Commonwealth Bank. During the financial crisis, Nguyen (a Vietnamese graduate) dudded hundreds of Australian self-funded retirees, leaving many bankrupt.
Don Nguyen – the corrupt face of banking
Merv and Robyn Blanch were self-funded retirees for 21 years. After receiving dodgy advice from their Commonwealth Bank financial planner, Don Nguyen, they lost around $170,000. By 2009 they were reliant on social security to survive. They were just two of thousands of clients who fell victim to rogue planners at the bank. The Commonwealth Bank initially offered the Blanchs a derisory $6,000 in compensation, which they rejected.
Which bank to trust? None.
Work in a bank? How embarrassing anyway?
What do you do for a living? “I work for a bank.”
How exciting and challenging !
Instead, there are plenty of decent proper and well-paid careers outside banking. If you are the “the brightest and the best” you don’t have to surrender your soul at the bank’s HR department, indulge in banking greed culture and risk a criminal conviction.
