ankurb

One of the most interesting calls till now in the VoiceTAP careers and colleges series was yesterday’s call on a career in the banking sector. Ambuj Chandna, Head (Western Zone) of ING Vysya Bank was the expert in call. He has over 16 years of banking experience and has previously worked with Citibank too. No wonder he was such well placed to answer queries succinctly!

Banking industry in a nutshell

This was by far the most interesting bit of the call, where Ambuj summed up the part so the baking industry and different career paths so lucidly. Banking industry can be divided in to the four distinct parts:

1. Retail banking: This consists of credit cards, personal level loans, savings / current / fixed deposit account etc. It’s the face of banking which most of us get to see during our transactions with banks. High quantity but possibly low volume.
2. Corporate ‘wholesale’ banking: Handling the banking needs of large corporate firms at various levels. There are certain types of customers which would fall on the borderline between retail customers and corporate customer who placed in either one of the categories depending from bank to bank for management purposes.
3. Private banking: This involves giving investment advice and managing the portfolio of high value assets (i.e., people with net worth more than Rs 5 crore – in the Indian context). Customers at this level are given much more personalized care by the bank.
4. Investment banking: Sometimes this is clubbed with corporate banking. It involves managing portfolios of big corporate firms, trading large volumes in the stock market, et al.

Another criteria of classification is according to functional areas in the banking setup. The major ones are sales / distribution, operations, and risk management; with smaller areas such as IT, HR, treasury, etc. The most common entry path is to do an MBA and then get into one of the first two main areas; the MBA route is a ‘safe’ option because it also leaves the chance to migrate to other industries. While those with just bachelor’s degrees (BBA / B.Comm) are not excluded from joining as such, the preferred route is to do a professional course like an MBA. If a candidate is sure that they want to go into a vertical like risk management then they have the option to do specialist programmes on that (which are not very easily available in India, but there are quite a few international certifications). Doing actuarial science or statistics for bachelor’s could also be a first step towards moving into the risk management vertical. Candidates aspiring for private banking are could do courses in chartered financial accountancy – again, a course which is more easily available abroad than in India.

Typical career paths are different for different functional backgrounds. If you get into sales, then you’ll start of as a customer relation manager, work in that role for few years and then move on roles of team manager, branch manager, cluster manager and so on. Alternatively, your title might remain the same but you could grow in terms of the affluence of the client you’re dealing with, so you could move from mass market retail banking to private banking for affluent customers. On the other hand, those who get into the operations side of the business move from being a process analyst to senior process analyst and eventually to head of operations.

Those aspiring to rise to higher managerial levels are advised to work in both sales and operations, as a premium is placed on those who have done both. Sales is more valued out of the two, so even though you might not have hands-on experience in operations you can still rise.

Private banking sector prefers to take in freshers with a professional degrees (like MBA) or ones with certifications. It’s best to start off with this as a career because banking it’s difficult to switch in to banking later on in career. Public sector banks on the other hand have no such preference for professional degrees. They take in plain graduates through exams they conduct and then train them on the job. Hiring over the past year has been slow due to recession in both public and private sector banks, but this is expected to rectify soon.

Bottom Line

If you have a knack for numbers (being good at mathematics is essential) then banking is an exciting – and potentially windfalling – career for you.

For the ‘Civil Services as a career‘ call in the careers and colleges series of VoiceTAP we had Pradeep Mishra (Additional Secretary, Ministry of Personnel) who is an IAS officer himself. This was a really interesting call – probably the most interesting one so far!

Listen to VoiceTAP Civil Services as a career call by clicking here

Civil Services in India – In a nutshell

Civil Services in India can be divided into the following categories on basis of the kind of work that a civil servant would take up, exams for which (for central level) are conducted by the UPSC:

• Indian Administrative Service (IAS): Most well-known out of all the Indian civil services, also probably the toughest to get into. Only around a 100 people are inducted in a year’s batch. Postings are done all across India.
• Indian Police Service (IPS): IPS cadre takes care of administrative functioning of police at various levels.
• Indian Forest Service & Indian Foreign Service: IFS & IFS are concerned with taking care of India’s forests and India’s foreign relations, respectively. The former requires you to be a science graduate to be eligible.

There are many other different cadres, which are assigned to a successful candidate by UPSC on the basis of how well they perform in the entrance exams. Getting is tough – candidates are advised to start preparing three years in advance! Evidently, selection is difficult because just a handful of candidates are chosen out of the hundreds of thousands who give the exam. Considerable grasp of general knowledge, government functioning and structure of society is necessary. Some papers are mandatory, but among the optional papers you’re advised to stick to subjects which you’re familiar with – rather than get taken in by talk of ‘X subject is easier’.

Once you pass the gruelling Civil Services Examination you’re allocated to a state cadre at village level. Yes, you have to start right from the bottom. This is considered necessary to give a good grounding on the harsh realities of India. After that, you progress on to district magistrate level, state secretary et al till the highest position of Secretary in some ministry at the central level. (A Secretary is just one level below a cabinet minister.)

Starting salary is around Rs 35000 (per month) and scales up to Rs 1 lakh for IAS officers in the senior most positions. Perks are also given, such as (almost) free housing, telephone, transport, etc. But more than financial remuneration the reason why most people join the civil services is the amount of respect they get in their position (that’s a lot of respect they get) and the ability to actually effect policy decisions that change a common man’s life for the better. That by far is the biggest job satisfaction factor involved in being a civil servant. A small minority of civil services officers also move on to join at senior management levels in public sector undertakings, or even private companies.

Bottom Line

In the current atmosphere of youth charged up to bring about reforms in the country, being a part of the system and making lives better as a civil servant is a career path which can bring you a lot of job satisfaction.

PS – I’m not even going to try assuming that I can suggest ‘further reading’ for civil services exams.