US
Forget equity research or prime brokerage sales, the most sellable skillset in the City this summer may be knowledge of IFRS 9 accounting rules.
The new accounting standard replaces the old IAS 39 guidelines for measuring and valuing financial instruments. Although implementation is only mandated from 2013, earlier adoption is entirely permissible.
“IFRS knowledge is the new hot topic,” says Elan Diamond, manager of the permanent banking team at recruitment firm Marks Sattin. “There tend to be a lot of people coming out of consultancy or practice with IFRS implementation skills, but there’s a real shortage of experienced individuals from the financial services sector who’ve actually worked with the new IFRS rules.
“These are the people banks are really interested in,” he adds.
Under IFRS 9, accountants apply different measures to determining whether an asset should be valued at amortised cost, or at fair value. A new ‘business model test’ helps determine whether the assets being valued are held for the purpose of collecting contractual cash flows (in which case they’re valued at the amortised cost), or held for the purpose of selling before maturity to realise changes in the fair value.
Diamond says individuals familiar with the new rules can command a premium.
“A newly qualified accountant with knowledge of IFRS can get 50-55k, instead of 45-50k. Someone with around three years’ experience can expect a salary of around 70k,” he asserts.
Not everyone’s convinced IFRS 9 is hot right now, however. Ben Bonny, a manager at recruiter Robert Walters, says it’s coming, but hasn’t hit yet. “With the impending changeover from IAS 39 to IFRS 9, we anticipate an increase in demand for individuals with the technical expertise to aid in this transition,” he ponders.
sarah – you got it all wrong.
55K jobs are not as hot as the bonus laden investment banking jobs
yawn yawn.
@alan – it all depends how you define hot. I don’t necessarily mean hot as in pays-a-lot-of-money-carries-a-lot-of-kudos, but hot as in there-is-lots-of-hiring.
I hope this makes it more exciting for you.
yawn yawn sarah, if you want a job that does a lot of hiring go to mcdonalds. 55k is what you make in a day in ibd, i don’t know why you are wasting your time writing about anything under 6 figures, but you are way off the mark.
Sarah..your post is so very wrong..an aca commands a premium and 55k salary is not hot.
if it’s that a good a thing, why tell everyone !!!
Poor Sarah. No matter what she writes about (and it must be difficult coming up with interesting things to write about day after day), the negative peanut gallery throws rotten tomatoes at her. Boo on them. I hope they have to deal with a pain in the **** boss at their jobs that makes life miserable for them for no good reason, like they do to Sarah.
Sarah, I think your writings and topics are fine for what it is – I’m not expected Pulitzer Prize winning pieces. Keep up the good work.
fully agree with Salt&PepperHairedGeezer :)
I am not sure why there should be premium for ACA- considering ACAs are so prevalent. The program churns out people who become auditors or do monkey-work in Corp Finance and assist in equity research (where CFA has some real value) in the City.
Yeah, a CFA charter with an MBA on the side in ibd crushes an ACA (even with detailed IFRS 9 knowledge) any day.
@Chavez – any idea roughly how many people in IBD are making 55k per day (over 13 million a year)? I’ll bet none of them have the time to post on eFC…
Yawn yawn Chavez you’re a jackass – Sarah is trying to highlight the increasing demand for a certain skill set. From the perspective of a recruiter interested in recruitment trends the artcile is useful. IB salaries are irrelevant just like you.
Sarah,
firstly, it is not accounting ‘rules’ but ‘principles’ – there is a huge difference. Secondly, there is no way anyone can have experience of IFRS 9 as it is a brand new standard and it has not been implemented before.