CFA Retail Bank

Water Cooler Careers
#1

Are there any members who work in Retail banking domain? In what all profiles (in Retail banking) do you see your CFA curricullum being useful?

I see CFA much more suited for Inv banking, but Retail may have some options.

I personally work in FP&A and am able to relate to the studies I have done for the charter?

How about you guys?

#2

I don’t see any relevance unless maybe, you were working in operations/cash area and wanted to move up to operational risk management, and even that is remotely covered in the curriculum.

#3

no use - useless.

Why would you pursue CFA for retail?

#4

Define retail banking. It wouldn’t be strange to see people with CFA’s in the quant/modeling group of a retail bank. But not sure if I’d pursue it for a career there. Think it just attracts CFA types. The CFA covers things outside of valuation (appraisals, for example).

#5

i thought retail banking refers to branches only (i.e. Customer service and operational products like withdrawals, deposits, transfers and so on) no? If OP means commercial banking, then that’s a totally different question.

#6

WoW!!! comming from Retail banking… the curricullum is not completely useless for Retail banking :stuck_out_tongue:

I kind of know where the Curr. is usefull but wanted more avenue from members so that I can start researching on them too…

Few places where I know abt the utility of curr. are:

  1. Proforma for Campaigns like 5x points on purchase for Credit cards
  2. Pricing of assest products (banks have Cash flow models to assess the impact)
  3. More interestingly Balance sheet management - something I am looking up to which looks for Int. Rate risk

Hope someone else adds to this topic… sharing more avenues where one can see application of CFA curr. with Retail banking

#7

Try to move into commercial side.

#8

A small percentage of retail employees do move to commercial banking or wealth management. I imagine that some knowledge of non retail business is a differentiating factor.

#9

Completely useless for retail, CFP is a better designation for that.

#10

I’m guessing retail banking may have different meanings in different countries. In Canada it encompasses the actual branches themeselves, as well as the back offices, and operations support.

I spent a year in retail before moving on to be a commercial banking analyst at a “Big 5” Canadian FI. I can say say that:

  1. At the branch level the CFA is an over qualification. As mentioned by Klaudnine, the CFP is more commonly seen among the FInancial Advisors and Planners at a branch banking level. Essentially every job at a branch is Qualitative and driven by service/sales. This point is driven home by the fact that (at least here in Canada), no retail banking job would qualify towards the experience requirement for the CFA designation.
  2. Back office of retail has a few analyst-type roles but are mostly internal-accounting driven. We’re talking lots of pro-forma to calculate sales targets, etc. There would be some product specific roles, where more finance intensive decisions would be made (calculating spreads on credit products, returns on deposit products). The CFA might be an asset in that kind of role, however I believe the product groups are normally sent down those numbers from Risk management.
  3. Similar to Ohai’s comment, I would recommend making the move into commercial if you’re interested in number crunching, or wealth management if you prefer portfolio management. Quite a few of the Wealth management advisors will be CFA charterholders, particularly those managing larger portfolios with sophisticated clients who would recognize the designation.
  4. From my own experience commercial is a great training ground. You get to look at a lot of financial statements, from a wide range of industries, do pro-formas, stress tests, implement derivative products, deal with PE firms, you get the idea.

Personally, If I saw a resume of a retail banking employee and noticed that “John Smith is a CFA® charterholder”, I would be asking “why is someone with their CFA still in retail banking (Where its useless)”, I may interview you just to get that answer…and it would have to be a good one to make any common sense.

#11

CFA Level 1 content would be relevant to a credit analyst or credit officer in C&I lending, but other than that it has no use. And that content you’ll learn on the job. You’re better off with an MBA.

#12

I think it would be useful to have CFA or some other non-retail qualification if you want to move to a different area. It gives you a good answer to the question “what have you done to move to X field”.