Everyone knows that bankers are well paid. Not everyone knows that not everyone who works in banking is a ‘banker’ and that some people spend years working on Wall Street and in the City of London and earn a fairly mediocre living.
Which jobs in financial services pay the least? And what do they involve? Based on US and UK salary surveys produced by recruitment firms Robert Walters, Kennedy Pearce and Michael Page, these are some of the positions in finance that won’t make you wealthy.
1. Reconciliations
Reconciliations jobs are all about reconciling differences of opinions. If you work in the reconciliations department of an investment bank’s operations department, you will be reconciling differences in opinion about whether a trade took place and was settled correctly.
After five years working in reconciliations, you can expect to earn a salary of around £55k in London or $84k on Wall Street, or around £25k in cities like Birmingham, where Deutsche Bank bases much of its back office.
2. Treasury, payments jobs
Fundamentally, treasury payments professionals in banks are there to ensure that banks pay what they owe when they owe it. For this, you will earn the grand sum of £35k+ after five years according to Kennedy Pearce.
3. Trade finance jobs
Trade finance is all about financing international trade. It may sound exciting, but it involves a lot of administrative activities like issuing letters of credit (letters which act as a guarantee to pay someone at a later date).
After five years in the more administrative roles trade finance you can earn £40k+ in London according to Kennedy Pearce.
4. Settlements jobs
Settlements jobs are much like reconciliations jobs. In fact, reconciliations are usually a subset of settlements, which involves everything from processing, monitoring and reconciling all the trades that take place within a bank. According to Robert Walters, cross product settlements professionals on Wall Street are paid a mere $35k -$55k (£20k-£33k) even at associate level (ie. after four years).
5. Anything to do with global custody
If you want to make money you might also want to steer clear of custody jobs. Custodians look after financial securities for banks and fund management firms (typically using intricate electronic systems). They’re often based in places like Ireland and Luxembourg, but there are some to be had in London and New York. After three years in a generic custody role you might earn around £50k ($84k) according to Robert Walters. That’s not bad, but if you’re going into finance for money it’s not good either.