Anyone working in banking/wealth??

Go Maith

Hi All, my recent application to work within wealth management with a bank (in Ireland) was successful. This is a big step for me & I would appreciate any info anyone has to offer..I would especially welcome any advice or tips from others currently working in, or with previous experience within this area...Also would like to hear of both positives & negatives associated with such a position.. Is the workload excessive? Is there a good work-life balance? Is it common to work outside of normal hours? Do you wear a standard bank uniform? Are standard hours 9-5? ..Also a choice of either a company car or motor allowance was mentioned..which option would be most advisable? ..& why? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Rows Grower

The meanest most miserable person I ever did work for was a wealth manager. We parted ways with him being the only person ever to cheat me out of money he owed me for work done but because his wife is a solicitor I bit the bullet and wrote it off as a life lesson.

I found out afterwards he has done it to numerous people I know, he has a holiday home near where I live and every tradesperson and member of the local golf club knows he is a parasite to be avoided at all costs.

Strangely his father is also a wealth manager and you could not meet a more decent man.

Don't end up like the parasite and let money be the obsession of your life is my advice. Be like the father that people will go out of their way to help.

The offspring parasite with the solicitor for a wife can't even get someone to cut the grass at his holiday home at this stage and is quite probably the most unpopular visitor to our area every summer. Money does strange things to some people.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120944506#Comment_120944506

Not in the least bit helpful, back up the soap box and take it somewhere else.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120944506#Comment_120944506

I knew a greengrocer who was very mean and generally not a nice person although his father was a gentleman. What does your one experience of one person have to do with anything?

OP, congratulations on the job, although those questions might have been better before you applied. I'm sure you'll be fine. Workloads, hours etc vary between employers in all professions.

Jim2007

OP, I moved your question over here because it did not fit in the forums you posted it in... I had expected you'd get a couple of useful answers, but it seems not.

Wealth Management is a very generic term and it can mean different services and products in different banks, everything from private banking, family office to fund management and more. Likewise there are a very wide range of jobs: back office, front office or just general admin roles, so you'd need to be more specific to elicit useful answers.

In terms of work load, it again depends very much on the type of work you are doing and the banks culture. If for instance you work in funds management I'd be surprised if you get to go home very often at 17:00! The money that comes in from the clients during the day must be applied before the day ends or the following morning depending on when the markets close. So typically the cut off might be say 16:00 and all funds destined for say the US markets need to be applied that evening, the next morning all funds destined for the European markets must be applied and so on. Of course it is all automated, but some instructions will always fall over and you will need to follow up and fix them - so a heavy morning and evening. On the other hand if you are dealing with private clients, then you work when every they want you to work and sometimes travel as well, because that is the basis of the service.

Generally speaking I'd say banking has become a very tough gig. Two bank have left the Irish market and the same is happening all over Europe due to a lack of profitability. And this is not surprising, everyone wants free banking and the banks themselves are competing on a cost basis in funds management - which is were they were supposed to make money by giving out free banking services in the first place. So what you've got today is an unconsolidated commodity industry. And we are just starting at the beginning of the next step - consolidation and elimination of competition. That means closures and job losses over say the next ten to twenty years before we reach a point where client fees can be reintroduced across the board.

Honestly, it's not a sector I'd advice anyone in my family to go into these days. Yes some people will build great careers for themselves, but they will be fewer and further apart than they were in the last couple of decades.