Finance news Scotland | Job market news, recruitment & career trends for the job seeker in Scotland for the financial markets

Our insight into recruitment within the Scottish fund management sector may have inadvertently overlooked the not insubstantial levels of hiring at Glasgow-based Ignis Asset Management this year. The firm has been bolstering its institutional sales team as it prepares to make inroads into this market. The latest addition is Johan Rydqvist, who joins the European sales team to cover the Nordic region. This follows the recruitment of a 10-strong European... Read more

With RBS poised to hand out around £1.3bn in bonuses this year – predominantly to London-based investment bankers – it's not just risking the wrath of the public. Its Scottish employees are rather peeved as well. Comparatively speaking, RBS isn't going to be particularly generous to its investment bankers. It plans to pay only 30% of its revenues in bonuses, which is substantially lower than the 40-50% usually handed out within... Read more

Aberdeen Asset Management has been expanding interntionally this year on the back of against-the-odds success. But the firm's chief executive Martin Gilbert remains attached to its (old) office in the granite city. Aberdeen's final year results to September 2009 appear to have defied market conditions. Credit Suisse's fund management business has been successfully integrated, assets under management have jumped from £111.1bn in 2008 to £146.2bn now, and operating profit is only... Read more

Scottish bankers lamenting the ongoing redundancy announcements coming from Lloyds Banking Group should bear one thing in mind – HBOS would have failed without intervention. At least that's the view of Archie Kane, executive director of the bank, who was presenting evidence to the ongoing Holyrood banking inquiry. He said that HBOS was "finished as an entity" when it was taken over by Lloyds for £12bn last year. His words are unlikely... Read more

After the latest round of job cuts at RBS – 3,700, of which 800 will hit Scotland – retail bankers north of the border can take some solace in the fact that the worst may be over, if Stephen Hester's words are to be believed. The bank's chief executive stepped up to give evidence to the ongoing banking enquiry held in Holyrood. He promised any future cuts within RBS's Scottish... Read more

Despite the redundancies announced at Lloyds banking Group this year, and last week's announcement to sell certain divisions, the firm has announced another 5,000 job cuts, around 1,000 of which will hit Scotland. The overlaps caused by the merger between Lloyds and HBOS last year have yet to be entirely ironed out, and the latest redundancies are an attempt to reduce these. The 5,000 job losses will be throughout the UK... Read more

Plans to break up and sell parts of both Lloyds and RBS are due to be unveiled in the next few days, meaning bankers north of the border will be on tenterhooks over the possible implications for jobs in Scotland. The European Commission is due to rule on what assets Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland must sell in return for millions of pounds of state aid. While this... Read more

Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has been swift to reinvigorate its fixed income division following a raft of departures, with the recruitment of Roger Webb to its corporate bond team and has other hires planned. But, another senior fund manager has left the company. The firm has signalled its intention to bolster its fixed income arm, following the departure of former global head of credit, Rod Davidson, and three of his... Read more

Yesterday's announcement that Barclays was to acquire Standard Life Bank could have signalled yet more blood on the floor within Scotland's beleaguered banking sector, but it seems that the move will not result in any immediate job losses. Barclay's £226m cash purchase of Standard Life Bank will simply mean that the 270 Edinburgh-based employees transfer across and there are no immediate plans for redundancies. While this will allow Standard Life's employees to... Read more

As unlikely as it sounds in the current climate, there's still a skills shortage in certain areas of Scotland's financial services industry, which means pay rises for those willing to switch jobs. Recruiters Joslin Rowe have been analysing job moves within the Scottish financial services market since March, and found that investment operations staff with corporate actions expertise are still very difficult to find. Corporate actions analyst salaries have risen by... Read more

Following the departure of a large chunk of its fixed income team, Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) is on the hunt for five new fund managers. Since losing Rob Davidson, its global head of fixed income and four members of his team to Alliance Trust in August, there was uncertainty as to whether SWIP would look to replace these departures or simply transfer staff internally. Currently, Andrew November has... Read more

Royal Bank of Scotland, you might remember, is in the midst of a £2.5bn cost-cutting programme, which is inevitably going to result in significant redundancies. Now, however, it's unveiled just how many jobs will go north of the border (initially at least) – 800. In a statement to Holyrood's Economy Committee's investigation into the consequences of the financial crisis in Scotland, RBS was somewhat repentant, saying: "Responsibility for our mistakes and... Read more

Scottish bankers have a right to feel a little peeved. Aside from ever-present threat of redundancy within the country's largest institutions, high-flyers in London are once again being offered lavish pay packets as firms grapple for their services – something decidedly amiss north of the border. Simon Thompson, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, believes morale is low among Scottish bank workers, a situation which isn't helped... Read more

On a relatively unknown student website, Business Because, we came across an interesting interview with Yu Tian, a JPMorgan associate who's voluntarily quitting his job in the current market to study an MBA at Imperial. College, London. In doing so, he is set to spend £80k on fees and living expenses. To relieve you of the need to read the entire article, we’ve summarized the relevant points as follows: Current position:... Read more

Right on cue, Lloyds TSB has announced yet another round of swathing cuts, with 1,200 UK jobs in the firing line, and once again Scotland is feeling the majority of the pain. Less than a month after the last round of redundancies, Lloyds' on-going cost-cutting has seen more jobs in Edinburgh face the axe. 400 permanent roles are set to go from within its operations division by the first quarter of next... Read more

To assuage any lingering doubts that investment banking is a young person’s game best suited to competitive people with very high stamina, Deutsche Bank has appointed an former ironman triathlete and Scottish youth rugby international as its UK chief executive. Colin Grassie isn’t the only sporting icon in banking. Financial News points out that the industry is also home to several rugby players, including Simon Halliday, former England wing, now... Read more

Hiring, as we have variously pointed out, appears to be making a slight comeback. But given the scale of recent redundancies, it’s still a buyers market. And in a buyer’s market, why use an intermediary? “A lot of banks are hiring directly,” says one headhunter. “It’s a cheaper option for them. At the end of the day, we charge 30% of total guaranteed compensation and they’re trying to cut costs.” “The... Read more

Tesco Personal Finance seems to be making a single-handed attempt to cut through the gloom surrounding the Scottish banking sector, and has now said it intends to recruit a further 250 people for its Edinburgh HQ. The banking operation of the supermarket giant revealed a £244m profit for 2008 and underwent an initial recruitment phase for its new Edinburgh HQ. Now, it's expanding even more north of the border and has... Read more

And so it begins, albeit at rather a slow pace. Lloyds TSB Group has unveiled plans to merge its Scottish Widows and Clerical Medial sales force, resulting in 300 redundancies, 50 of which will be in Scotland. Lloyds, which is looking to save £1.5bn following its merger with HBOS, says that from July the two entities will come under the Scottish Widows brand, meaning 305 sales jobs are under threat. Scotland has... Read more

Now that New Labour is no longer "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich", you may feel the urge to go elsewhere. The chart below, compiled by Ernst & Young for UK tax rates of 40%, shows that the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Mexico have some of the lowest rates of marginal income tax for high earners globally. Unfortunately, none are famed as financial services centres. More appealing... Read more