Congress enacted Dodd-Frank, which created the Financial Stability Oversight Council, to guard against a recurrence of the financial crisis and to protect American taxpayers. The initial intent of this legislation was to coordinate various regulatory agencies and instill joint accountability for the stability of the financial system. However, with today’s highly-interconnected global financial markets, there is a risk of over-regulation or what some are calling "regulatory arbitrage" that carries with... Read more

Wall Street donors, usually known for their conservative leanings, helped push through the same-sex marriage law passed in New York, according to an article in The New York Times. Three financiers in particular were cited for supporting Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign with six-figure checks: Paul Singer, founder of Elliott Management, Clifford Asness, head of AQR Capital, and Daniel Loeb, head of Third Point. “They were inclined to see the... Read more

Citigroup has hired Elinor Hoover from Morgan Stanley as a vice chairwoman for capital markets and origination in the Americas. [DealBook] UBS hired Doug Brengel and Bill Frauenhofer from Citigroup to head its technology group. [Bloomberg] Goldman added Debora Spar, president of Barnard College, to its 11-member board. [NY Times] Investment bank Moelis & Co. hired Liam Beere, formerly global head of M&A at UBS, as a managing director,... Read more

Lower-level product support, sales lead, and implementation personnel are needed at a growing number of cloud-based platform and solutions providers to deal with banks and i-banks, as well as hedge funds. A number of tech companies, like InData, are actively recruiting for implementation and product support people to work with the buy-side. Software engineers are also in demand on the front-end and applications side at places like InvestLab, as they... Read more

Thanks to something called “wild information,” cognitive thinking and our ability to evolve and adapt to new situations there will be a need for humans in a future of faster, stronger, and in some cases meaner machines that will eliminate the need for a few but not all positions. At least that was the message at the Sifma Financial Services Technology Forum and Expo in New York this week. The good... Read more

Six areas where banks are still busting to hire people in the front office Now that equities recruitment appears to be falling out of favor and fixed income headhunters are speaking of hiring freezes, it’s tempting to assume that there’s not much hiring happening in the front office and that only finance, risk and compliance professionals can find jobs. [Luxembourg] It’s not easy to find talent in Asian wealth management but... Read more

Sometimes using recruiters works better than applying directly to banks. And if you put in extra effort when choosing your consultants, your career could benefit. Here are some reasons why. 1) Screen and select There’s a limited number of large financial services firms and it’s difficult to look into the quality of their internal hiring teams. But recruitment firms are comparatively plentiful, so you should at least be able to find... Read more

Let the good times roll. Last year the job turnover rate on Wall Street was up a mighty 25% over 2009 – with the sweet spot being for jobs paying between $100,000 and $200,000 with annual bonuses of 10% to 15%, according to a story in the NY Post, which reports: “More staff than ever before are prepared to job hop in search of higher salaries, career advancement, bonuses, fringe... Read more

Cities like New York, Chicago and Boston most often come to mind when one considers a job in financial services. And recently we pointed out how different areas of the country such as Salt Lake City, Seattle and the Raleigh-Cary region of North Carolina were also becoming financial centers. But would you believe a new survey shows the top city to find a finance job today is actually, San Francisco. The... Read more

Consolidation fever is still rampant across all sectors of the industry. But none have seen more M&A activity recently than the exchanges and commercial transfer agents. Of course, with mergers usually come layoffs. One such case is BATS Europe, as they get ready to send half of its workforce at Chi-X Europe packing after the merger is completed. Reports indicate that a chunk of Chi-X Europe’s operations and tech staff... Read more

Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase, now want to help investors bet on people’s deaths through pension fund bonds, according to Bloomberg, which writes: “Pension funds sitting on more than $23 trillion of assets are buying insurance against the risk that their members will live longer than expected. Banks are looking to earn fees from packaging that risk into bonds and other securities to sell to investors. The hard... Read more

For the love of the brand: Chinese candidates shop around to get the best banking labels on their CVs As foreign banks in China compete for a limited number of suitable candidates, it’s becoming more difficult for them to retain staff because job seekers are moving to competitors to give their resumes a short-term boost. [HK] How to extract feedback from a recruiter If you want recruiters to actually call you back... Read more

JPMorgan Chase named former Barclays M&A banker Drago Rajkovic to lead the bank's technology-related mergers and acquisitions group.[DealBook] UBS hired Kenneth Cohen, who oversaw commercial-mortgage bonds at Lehman. [Bloomberg] Kevin Cox, formerly head of Americas investment banking at UBS, is joining Citigroup as co-chairman of global industrials banking. [DealBook] Old Mutual Asset Management, the hedge fund arm of the London-based life insurer, is set to name Steve Belgrad... Read more

This could be a good year for job seekers in the financial sector. The latest eFinancialCareers survey released today found that nearly two out of three (62.1%) financial professionals plan on moving to a new employer in 2011. Moreover, four out of five (80.5%) say their current employer has not offered them any positive incentives to stop them from jumping ship. Perhaps an even more important statistic in terms of... Read more

Have banks over-hired in technology? After a vigorous amount of recruitment in 2010, are investment banks suddenly finding that they're over-stocked with technologists? [UK] Watch out Western banks: Haitong wants to take you on Chinese securities firms and investment banks are increasingly willing to pay high senior salaries in both the mainland and Hong Kong in order to poach bankers from Western rivals. [HK] GUEST COMMENT: What to expect if you interview for... Read more

Other than not getting selected as a possible candidate, nothing’s more painful than the feeling that you’ve left money on the table. If you’ve been lucky enough to get a job offer, or if you’re one of the ones in the final running, it’s probably time for your prospective employer to turn the tables on you. It’s the question you know they’re going to ask. What salary and take are... Read more

It’s no surprise that the post of derivatives reconciliation specialist is gaining in profile. According to the NYSE Euronext, March trading volumes for its global derivatives and cash equities exchanges grew at a sizeable clip. Of the 9.2 million contracts traded per day, the average daily volume (ADV) of global derivatives increased 11.9 percent in March 2011 as compared to the prior year. ADV grew 2.5 percent from February 2011... Read more

Three areas of the country not usually associated with finance are emerging as financial markets centers - Salt Lake City, Seattle and the Raleigh-Cary region of North Carolina. For example, Goldman Sachs’ second largest office in North America is in Salt Lake City, and the Wall Street powerhouse plans to continue growing there. For job seekers, that could mean additional opportunities in investment research, investment management, compliance, operations, technology, human... Read more

Low-cost portfolio managers that sell prepackaged portfolios such as MarketRiders and Folio Investing are being eyed as the new wave of investing, as such products have attracted more than $3 billion in assets over the last three years, according to Businessweek . These services are designed to tap the market of attract smaller, self-directed investors with monthly fees as low as $10 -- an underserved group, as traditional brokerages... Read more

It seems like the old boys’ network is alive and well on Wall Street, if only because guys know how to make one another feel like part of the team even before a relationship’s been established. Connie Thanasoulis-Cerrachio, head of career coaching firm SixFigureStart, recently observed this clearly when she and some colleagues interviewed asset management analyst recruits from top undergraduate colleges and universities. Some of the male interviewers greeted... Read more