eFinancialCareers

HBOS has cut bonuses for its top brass for 2007, but may have made it easier for them to earn payouts in 2008. In its annual report for 2007, the bank admitted that its growth had slowed, and said it had slashed short-term cash bonuses for its executives from 69% in 2006 to 46% last year. It also revealed that it would not be paying anything out from its long-term incentive... Read more

Barclays Wealth is said to be struggling to retain its private client managers. What are their other options? Mark Kibblewhite, managing director of Barclays Wealth in Edinburgh, was last week locked in crisis talks with a team of “disgruntled private client managers”, according to reports in The Herald. The problems at Barclays Wealth seem to stem from the fact that its staff feel they are being pushed into cross-selling by... Read more

Not yet. Scotland’s doing its best to attract finance employers, but the best that can be said about its global profile is that it’s ‘stable’. The results of the latest Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) are in, and it’s been a relatively successful one for Scottish cities – Edinburgh is up two places to 18th, and Glasgow has jostled its way into the league for the first time, coming in at... Read more

HBOS has brushed off sub-prime concerns and announced it’s set to open a global office in Edinburgh. It’s been a turbulent week for the Scottish bank, which blamed the global credit squeeze for a 4% fall in its profit margin on the previous year. However, it only wrote down a comparatively measly £227m in fair value adjustments due to the US sub-prime crisis. Analysts had told us they expected 2008 to be... Read more

Contractors in Scotland may be forced to bite the bullet as financial services firms look to cut back on temps. The temp market has been booming in Scotland over the last year, as soaring headcount requirements and limited talent have forced companies to fill the gaps with contractors. Rates have soared from £250-£300 a day to £350-£400, according to recruiters, which might be the reason the party looks set to end. Steve Shields,... Read more

The private banking sector is heating up in Scotland, but pay still lags far behind other financial centres. Standard Life Investments is the latest to add a wealth management feather to its cap, following on from HSBC Private Banking, which opened up an Edinburgh branch in January. Other smaller boutique wealth managers like Rathbone Brothers, Bell Lawrie White, and Adam & Co. all provide investment services to Scotland’s upper crust.... Read more

Want to keep your bonus out of the hands of your ex? Moving north of the border provides you with a neat little loophole. In an admittedly underhand exercise, a fund manager – at the time working for Standard Life Investments – is accused of luring his estranged wife to Edinburgh under the guise of reconciliation, only to present her with divorce papers, according to the Daily Mail. Under Scottish law... Read more

Amid a global downturn, the mainstays of Scottish financial services – back and middle office functions – are still booming. While investment banks globally might be wielding the axe more than Jack Nicholson in The Shining, financial firms in Scotland are still suffering from a talent drought in investment operations and fund accounting, and salaries are heading northwards. The latest salary survey by recruiters Robert Walters predicts an increase in pay... Read more

Plans for a local income tax in Scotland could discourage quality candidates from making the move north of the border. Owen Kelly, chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise – which is backed by such financial powerhouses as Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Life – has told the Scotsman that Government plans for local income tax are troubling his members. He said: “Anything that starts to look like we have people... Read more

Confidence in financial services recruitment in Scotland has dipped back to the dark days of post-9/11, but some areas could see double-digit pay rises. Accountants, settlements professionals and those in investment operations, will be in the money to the tune of 15-20% more this year, according to research from recruiters Joslin Rowe and Scottish Enterprise. The reason for the surge in salaries is simply a matter of supply and demand,... Read more

The mysterious world of contracts for difference trading and spread betting has hit Scotland, so what does it take to enter the industry? What is it? Though the CFD market has boomed since its emergence in the early 1990s, to the point where it now accounts for a third of the UK’s share trading activity, there’s still confusion about what it actually entails. Essentially, it allows you to take a position... Read more

Forget the difficulty in finding the people for financial services jobs, Scotland might struggle to find offices to put them in. Property consultant Jones Lang Lasalle has warned that Edinburgh faces a shortage of office space, but it seems it’s not just space in the Scottish capital that’s in short supply. Scotland is fast becoming the region of choice for back-office roles. Citigroup employs around 235 people in Edinburgh, BNP Paribas... Read more

It’s grim tidings at the big four Scottish financial institutions – and lay-offs look likely as firms seek to slash costs, say analysts. The share prices of Royal Bank of Scotland, HBoS and Aberdeen Asset Management all slumped by around 40% last week, suggesting any hopes of Scotland being isolated from the credit crunch were wishful thinking. Does this mean redundancies are on the cards? Leigh Goodwin, an analyst at specialist... Read more

Education, education, education. The skills shortage in the Scottish financial services market has prompted action at a grass roots level, and its targets are getting younger. The Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland (CIOBS) offers a Certificate in Financial Services in schools, which looks to fast-track pupils into a financial career and is now on its second intake of students. The class of 2006 were the guinea pigs, but last year... Read more

Investment consultancy Hewitt Associates has established a presence in Edinburgh and plans to kick-start an expansion this year. David Crum and Zuhair Mohammed, two big players appointed last year, have ventured north of the border to set up a Scottish office. Hewitt’s Edinburgh office aims to boost its reputation among Scottish pension funds and asset managers. The Scottish capital is home to some of the UK’s largest fund managers,... Read more

What will be hot and what will not in the coming 12 months? Here’s our verdict… 2008 will be a good year for… Corporate finance The bare statistics don’t make comforting reading. Preliminary figures from insider.co.uk suggest Scottish-only corporate finance deals were a mere £1.44bn in the third quarter of 2007 – down from £5bn for the same period in 2006. However, while the mid-market may have suffered, corporate finance professionals remain convinced that... Read more

What was hot and what was not in Scotland in 2007? Here’s our considered verdict… 2007 was a good year for… Fund management Fund managers in Scotland were defiantly bullish this year: the battle for talent intensified, top names engaged in a game of musical chairs, and profits and revenues increased. Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP), for example, lost its chief executive John Phillips in January, and its head of European equities went to... Read more

In Scotland’s candidate-driven market, is it time to speed up the recruitment process or risk missing out on talent? The typical recruitment process in financial services firms takes at least six weeks, during which time candidates can easily have multiple offers on the table. Existing employers are also likely to counter-offer in a bid to hold on to scarce talent, say recruiters. Fraser McMillan, senior consultant at Robert Half, says: “We don’t... Read more

The proliferation of fund accounting jobs in Scotland is creating a fluid recruitment environment where people are skipping speedily from one job to the next. The past year has seen expansions by BNP Paribas, JP Morgan, State Street, Citi, and BlackRock in the fund accounting space in Scotland, and difficulty finding candidates – together with candidates’ own realisation of their worth – has created a revolving door effect. “Everybody’s recruiting and retention... Read more

Insurance underwriters in Scotland have seen big salary hikes in the last year, as a shortage of candidates drives demand. The latest salary survey by recruiter Joslin Rowe paints a different picture from last year, when broker mergers meant insurers were more likely to lose their jobs than land a large pay rise. But with new firms setting up in Scotland this year – such as Ace Insurance which created 200 jobs... Read more