AU
Sector: FX & Money Markets
Killer interview question: How many professional piano tuners are there in Melbourne?
This question was asked at an interview for an FX-options trader position at a Big Four Australian bank. The question in full We want you to tell us how many professional piano tuners there are in Melbourne, and walk us through your logic for coming to your final answer. The candidate’s response · 4m people [...]
BarCap coughs up cash to capture best candidates
The big(ish) Barclays Capital push into Australia is continuing as the firm recruits for its new foreign exchange and interest rate trading business in Sydney. About 15 staff have been hired or transferred to Sydney from Singapore or Tokyo as part of the expansion. The move reflects the current attractiveness of Australia’s high-yielding, highly-rated securities [...]
Citi likes FX in Sydney (so do other banks)
When Citi’s global head of foreign exchange, Anil Prasad, breezed through Sydney last week he identified Australia as a global centre for foreign exchange trading. As one of the firm’s fastest growing divisions, FX is vital to reviving Citi’s international profitability. Sydney – one of five global FX hubs for the bank, alongside London, New [...]
Laid off in equities? Try FX
Want to work in a section of the Australian finance industry where firms are actually still hiring? Foreign exchange (FX) is emerging as one of the best sectors to land a new job. FX is still a comparatively profitable and liquid industry. And while hiring has taken a hit, at least it’s still happening. “The [...]
Westpac banks on big job losses
The AU$18.6bn merger plan announced this month between Westpac and St George looks destined to lead to big job cuts. Experts expect thousands of jobs to be axed as the banks integrate their operations and reduce overlaps across different divisions, as well as at the branch level. Toon Van Beeck, senior analyst with industry research [...]
Want to leave? Pay back that bonus
Investment banks are coming up with innovative ways to keep some staff on their payrolls, even while they let go of others in the wake of the credit crunch. This inventiveness mostly takes the form of long-term stock grants, or measures that let banks defer cash expenses in hopes that revenue growth will pick up [...]
Australian bankers spared redundancy
Wholesale redundancies don’t seem to be on the agenda right now for Australia’s major and regional trading banks, or for most of the investment banks. That’s the word from senior recruiters, although the marketplace is still full of downsizing rumours, including one that Bank of America will scale back from a trading bank to a [...]
For sale sign up at ABN AMRO Australia
Who’ll buy ABN AMRO’s Australian unit? And what will happen to its 700 local staff? With a reported AU$1bn price tag, and most banks struggling to find cash at the moment, sale advisers Lazard Carnegie Wylie certainly have their work cut out. Analysts regard ABN AMRO’s mergers and acquisition division as one of the key [...]
Exile on Wall Street?
Wall Street is definitely not the flavour of the month at the moment, especially when it comes to investment banking. It’s not really surprising, therefore, that many Australians working in the Big Apple are checking out their job options for fear they may not have a job in the very near future. According to Adam [...]
False sense of security?
The US financial services industry is burning, but who’s to say Sydney’s so safe? Bear Stearns doesn’t have an Australian office and Macquarie and Babcock made healthy profits in 2007, but that doesn’t make Australia immune to what’s happening on Wall Street. Australia’s market has dropped 20% since November, with finance stocks down 30%. Notions [...]
Follow eFinancialCareers
What is RSS?
