In the present job market, some career paths prove to be more rewarding and successful than the rest. One such career path is Investment banking because not only does it pay well even in fresher positions, but it also offers several career growth opportunities. An individual who masters every aspect of this domain and performs well in their job can easily climb up the ladder to success. To build a career in the investment banking domain, you must possess a bachelor’s degree in either commerce, finance, economics, or related fields, alongside having an interest in the field. If you meet these requirements and want to know more about the Investment Banking career in India, you’ve come to the right place.
What is Investment Banking With Examples?
To better understand investment banks, we can look at their daily responsibilities closely. Investment baking is a special segment in the banking domain that deals with several complex tasks involving financial services and transactions, all done on behalf of the client.
Some examples of these tasks can include acquiring equity, launching new products, raising capital, and insuring bonds. These are special tasks that are not of use to regular people and so it should be stated that clients of investment banks comprise of companies or high net-worth individuals.
Throughout the years the investment banking industry has seen several changes. In India, it traces back to the European merchant banks establishing first established their trading houses.
It was around the 19th century and since then many non-Indian investment banks flourished in the country. To name some of the top international investment banks we have J.P Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Bank, etc.
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Types of Investment Banking Jobs
Advancing in the investment banking domain does not cater to one role or one work environment. It offers diversity in terms of career paths and promotions. The term acts as a cornerstone for finance-related activities, that involve much more than trading, capital raising, and risk management.
Thus, if you are opting for an investment banking career in India you’ll be presented with a good amount of opportunities. Below is a list showcasing the job roles within the investment banking domain.
- Investment Banker
An Investment banker officially provides advice on important financial matters to corporations or in some cases the government. They are skilled individuals who work within a financial institution and perform the very important tasks of raising capital for their high net-worth clients. This can be done by selling equity or issuing debt in the organizations.
However, their day-to-day responsibilities are not limited to these and they have to assist several clients with mergers and acquisitions, as well as, provide professional advice on unique investment opportunities.
In entry-level positions, you could earn a decent salary of 2 – 4 LPA and with higher positions in investment banking, you can earn up to 60 LPA. The national average salary for an investment banker in India with more than 5 years of experience is INR 18 lakhs per year.
Financial analysts are individuals with a strong foundation in mathematics and analytical skills because most of their duties revolve around performing financial analyses for businesses.
They are responsible for various tasks related to research and staying updated on investment strategies. Financial analysts are also expected to be skillful when making investment decisions on behalf of their clients.
To become a successful financial analyst, you have to master multiple soft and hard skills such as accounting, Excel, reporting, communication, forecasting, financial modeling, leadership, and budgeting.
Even though the Financial analyst career is a lucrative field within investment banking, employees earn less than investment bankers. If you’re pursuing this field you can earn a decent salary of INR 4 – 15 lakhs per year.
- Equity Research Analyst
The job of an Equity research analyst mainly concerns public companies and the research surrounding them. As an Equity research analyst, you have to come up with valuable recommendations for investors concerning matters of selling, buying, or holding on to stocks.
The role played by Equity research analysts is essential for the buy-side and sell-side of funds, which is why they are hired by these brokerage firms. This field makes a great investment banking career in India and a fresher pursuing it must earn a bachelor’s degree in economics or finance.
With all this in mind, you must be wondering ‘Is the field difficult?’. Truth be told, it can be quite competitive and oftentimes stressful for most individuals but the career path in the long run can be very rewarding.
On average, Equity research analysts can earn INR 16 lakhs per year if their skills and expertise are good enough to be considered. On the other hand, Glassdoor estimates the salary range of this career path to fall between 15 to 20 lakhs per year, including additional pay.
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- Financial Associate
A financial associate job is another great choice for an investment banking career in India. In this role, your daily duties would involve preparing financial reports or budgets, managing accounting records, preparing payroll documents, handling payments, and offering advice on fiscal procedures.
Similar to financial analysts, they are also tasked with financial responsibilities for an organization. Although the particular role may be different, such as handling investments, payments, and budgets.
Through their hard work and precision, financial associates can use data analytics and metrics to support their positions, formulate educated predictions, stay informed on current economic activities, and participate in discussions with clients or team members.
If you’re pursuing this field, you can easily earn a salary between 1.9 to 10 lakhs per year, with the proper qualifications required for this position. In fresher positions, however, your salary can be INR 3 lakhs per year. Like other job opportunities, Financial associates get scope for promotions so that junior employees can enhance themselves.
- Client Associate
Client associates are tasked with assisting more than one financial advisor or wealth management professional. Their role is of importance to various financial advisors who may require them to interact with certain clients.
If you have to break it down in simpler terms, the position is quite similar to administrative or clerical positions and it doesn’t involve advising on finance-related matters.
There are several tasks and the focus remains on the betterment of the client and advisor relationship. The duties could involve addressing client inquiries, scheduling meetings, tracking customer calls and emails, resolving their problems, helping them, and organizing client paperwork.
If you have experience of a minimum of 1 year or more than that, you will be able to earn INR 2 – 6 lakhs yearly. The annual average salary for this career path comes around to INR 3.5 lakhs per year. However, more than five years of experience or other factors can enable you to make more out of it.
- Branch Manager
With years of experience and skill gain, you can opt for the position of a branch manager, who oversees the operations of financial institutions. They are responsible for developing sales and attaining alongside managing the resources.
Through their performance, they enable the firm to grow its revenues. As a branch manager, you can delegate tasks to the most suitable workers and the outcome of the tasks depends on it.
You must be extremely skilled with multitasking and organizing to accomplish some tasks in an efficient and timely manner. This enhances work quality for not just the branch manager but also clients and other employees under them such as bank tellers, back-office workers, and loan officers.
In terms of an investment banking career in India, the position of branch manager is a highly rewarding one, that pays for both time and effort. According to several sources, your yearly pay for this position is INR 31 lakhs. Along with it, there are provisions for average additional cash of INR 21 lakhs.
Benefits of an Investment Banking Career in India
Among all the career options in the finance and banking industry, there is no other like investment banking. It is a fact that the job has to offer plenty of career growth opportunities, an excellent work environment in most cases, other amenities, and decent pay for the effort and skill you put into it.
So to sum it up, we have compiled a list of benefits that the investment banking domain has to offer and why it remains such a sought-after profession in today’s society.
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Advancement –
An investment banking career in India can get you more occasions for growth and added benefits during your time at a reputed investment banking firm. As per the hierarchy of investment banking positions, the aspiring investment banker can climb the ladder of success with proper dedication to the field.
The career growth opportunities make it one of the most promising career paths in India. With each position, you typically have to dedicate 2-4 years before you can climb further up.
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Networking –
Networking is the base for career success because if you’re a professional and don’t know how to efficiently connect with people, you might be at a loss sooner or later. As seen for investment banking career in India, networking skills are useful for both freshers and senior-ranking investment bankers.
When you are in lower positions, you can start building connections with other individuals in your team or outside to get better career prospects in the future. In senior roles, you can connect with your juniors and help shape their career paths. Thus, networking is a skill that is very beneficial to have.
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Excellent pay –
An Investment banking career in India is one such field that pays you according to the time and energy you put into the work. This can include bonuses and occasional payments for overtime.
In fresher positions, you can earn equivalent to many full-time jobs in other fields, which is a decent six-figure income along with an additional rise in pay.
From then onwards, you can work your way up to higher positions like associates, vice president, senior vice president, and managing director, to increase your paycheck. However, with higher benefits comes more responsibility and more expertise in the industry.
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Working With Other Professionals –
Investment bankers are professionals who are ambitious and their work requires them to be so. When you pursue the field of investment banking, you get to work with like-minded individuals and in the process learn from them.
It brings you multiple career growth opportunities and connecting with your peers and seniors give you better insight into the work environment. Learning by doing is the best method to master a skill and this field offers you this scope.
Moreover, the profession demands strong analytical abilities, intelligence, and the ability to work long hours which cannot be mastered alone.
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Potential For Teamwork –
As stated previously, teamwork brings you extra benefits that might not have been present if performed individually. If you’re someone with great communication and adaptability, you might be well-suited to working with a team. Teamwork often includes working on tasks jointly and respecting your teammates all the while.
Conflicts are inevitable when too many individuals work on something, but good teamwork skills enable you to have respect for everyone’s opinion and come to a decision together. In this case, compromise is necessary and the focus should be on reaching a favorable output.
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Competitiveness –
Apart from being highly sought-after, an investment banking career in India presents a series of challenges for everyone pursuing it. The field is well-suited for individuals who like to overcome such hurdles that will reward them sufficiently later on.
Throughout your time in entry-level positions like analysts and associates, you will be able to master more analytic skills and build strong client relations.
In most cases, investment banks function in strict work environments, making sure that everything goes according to what was originally planned. For some individuals, a strict work environment is essential for maintaining discipline and proper organization of work outcomes.
Skills Required For Becoming An Investment Banker
Your potential as an applicant increases when you have the qualities that an investment banking firm seeks in candidates. Among these skills, there are ones that make an individual the perfect fit and others that make you unique. Therefore, we’ve compiled a list of hard and soft skills that will make you stand out when put on your resume.
Hard Skills
Financial skills: These are the most in-demand skills that most employers look for in candidates applying for finance and banking industries. It consists of not one but multiple sets of hard skills like budgeting, financial analysis, problem-solving, risk management, financial planning, and so on.
In an investment banking career in India, employees are tasked with many important financial dealings that concern the firm as well as the clients. Thus, knowing these skills can help you work efficiently in entry-level positions like analysts and associates.
Risk management: Another skill that falls under the broader financial skill is risk management. With this skill, you can effectively identify, assess, and mitigate potential risks that can have an impact on the long-term goals of the organization.
Risk management enables you to identify both internal risks and external risks and some strategies implemented could include risk reduction, risk transfer, or risk avoidance. Its value in an investment banking organization involves protecting financial assets against loss.
Analytical skills: These skills mainly refer to problem-solving skills and if you have them mastered, then most entry-level tasks in the investment banking industry will get easier for you.
These skills refer to data collecting, interpreting, and evaluating various pieces of information, to make informed decisions. In many cases, your job might require you to break down complex information and identify patterns or trends in the industry so that you can assist clients better.
Mathematic skills: In an investment banking career in India, several tasks might require you to deal with numerical. Specifying mathematic skills in your resume will make you stand out because not a lot of people mention it, but it’s a skill sought-after by employers.
The main areas where analytical skills are useful include discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation, compound annual growth rate, book-building activities, equity value, comparing company analysis, and net present value (NPV).
Computer-based skills: If you are naturally a tech-savvy individual, chances are that you are familiar with the most relevant computer-based tools needed by investment banking firms.
It might sound like a regular thing for most young adult people but there are quite several individuals who aren’t skilled in computerized ways. So, what are these applicable for? Investment banking analysts perform several tasks through Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and other apps like Power BI and Bloomberg. Being skilled with these can increase your chances.
Soft Skills
Communication: It’s a skill that is valued in not just investment banking but all industries. Your job as an investment banker involves forming a connection with clients through effective communication.
In fact, with high communication skills negotiation can be made easy and a lot of other tasks are handled with ease. Other than that, communication aids in risk management because stakeholders can be kept informed and several other issues can be addressed and communicated on time.
Time Management: Managing time is crucial for an investment banker and this skill is mostly specified in job descriptions. It is often subtle but most people have it naturally and employers like to see it mentioned in resumes. As you might know, investment bankers work on tight schedules, often having to spare extra hours to finish their assigned tasks. In this case, an individual must be efficient with time.
Collaboration: Most top-level financiers prefer to collaborate with individuals who adapt well to a team. These bring new opportunities for junior-level investment banker, as they not only enable them to strengthen industry connections but also develop their skills.
Collaboration and teamwork abilities help several tasks get done, among them, some are complex deals, matters concerning stakeholders, and others that require diverse expertise.
Intellect: You must have strong intellect if you’re applying for this field. To build an investment banking career in India, you must think about the analytical, mathematical, financial, and economic aspects of the job before anything else.
Besides, as a candidate you must have curiosity and dedication for this industry, only then will you be able to give your all. Investment bankers are tasked with solving several complex puzzles and you must have a desire to do so. To overcome this, you have to form an understanding of your work as well as your team’s.
Creativity: It may seem out of place, but yes, to build an investment banking career in India creativity is also a must. It happens to be that creative individuals are naturally innovative in their approach and like to think of different ways to approach a problem. Thus, adding this skill to your resume can make you seem more valuable to the company. Most successful investment bankers are also creative individuals.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q) What qualifications do I need to pursue investment banking?
Generally, an investment banker must be from a commerce background. Otherwise, to be qualified you must present a bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business Administration, Accounting, or Economics.
Q) Is it difficult to qualify for investment banking interviews?
No, investment banking interviews aren’t difficult. The proceedings are very similar to other job interviews. To overcome your fear of interviews, you must prepare well ahead of time and attend mock interview sessions.
Q) What investment banking firms can I apply to?
Some top investment banking firms that you can apply to are Barclays Bank, J.P Morgan, Edelweiss, IDBI Capital, Axis Capital Limited, and HSBC.
Conclusion
Deciding on a lucrative career path can get overwhelming at times and that calls for doing your research before settling for a job opportunity. Investment banking is one such field that has several opportunities but might seem rather intimidating for several individuals. An investment banking career in India can be rewarding even for entry-level employees. It is important to form your base understanding of the investment banking industry and know what it takes to become a successful investment banker. With this article, we hope that most of your queries related to the field were answered.