Financial services are about making, investing and managing money for people and organisations. It covers everything from trading shares on Wall Street to helping you save for a rainy day. The industry also includes credit card companies and mortgage lenders as well as investment banks and insurance firms.
It’s a broad sector that affects everyone from individuals to small businesses and large corporations. It even involves nonprofits that provide counseling or money management advice. Basically, it’s “everything that touches money,” says Ryan Duitch, president and CEO of Arro. You can think of it as comprising of three key sectors:
The tertiary sector of the economy grows because of financial services and this growth is visible to the consumers who can afford more products and services due to the increased income generated by the companies involved in the financial service. This enables the consumer to improve his standard of living.
A career in this industry requires a good amount of hard and soft skills, but a degree isn’t always essential for some roles. You can start with entry level positions like customer service, then work your way up to the higher positions, especially in the specialized fields like securities research or brokerage services (buying and selling stocks on behalf of clients). Some of these jobs also include private banking, which caters to high-net worth individuals. Other specialised areas are prime brokerage, which is an exclusive type of bundled broker service for hedge funds and other institutional investors; and currency exchange.