Relationship manager (RM) jobs in Singapore and Hong Kong corporate banking are in demand right now as banks look to expand their client base, both locally and regionally, in this lucrative, expanding sector.
RM roles also offer comparatively stable careers and haven’t suffered from the mass redundancies that have afflicted investment banking over the past six years.
But how do you get your first relationship manager job in Singapore or Hong Kong as a graduate?
Despite the reputation of relationship management for client schmoozing and long lunches, banks in Asia are just as conservative with their graduate recruitment of RMs as they are with more technical roles. They are unlikely to pluck you off the golf course just because you’re good at networking.
Most RMs are actually finance graduates who first joined the banking sector via a graduate trainee programme, often one focused (at least in part) on the firm’s corporate-banking division.
“Many banks in Asia, like Standard Chartered, DBS and Citi, are now hiring fresh graduates and training them to become junior RMs,” says Anamika Singh, a former BNP Paribas corporate banker and a principal consultant at recruitment firm Charterhouse Partnership in Singapore.
You won’t be facing clients from the get-go, however. Firms tend to give corporate-banking analyst trainees a taste of relationship management only after they have developed a better understanding of their business via stints in operations, risk and other departments.
For example, only in months 10 to 12 of Standard Chartered’s year-long international graduate programme for its Corporate & Institutional Clients (C&IC) and Corporate Finance divisions do you spend time in the front office of C&IC. During this period trainees get their first taste of “building business relationships with clients” as well as learning about account planning, pipeline management and credit risk.
Banks in Singapore and Hong Kong are also growing their RM ranks via management-associate schemes which typically welcome both Bachelors and Masters graduates who may also have a couple of years of work experience. These range from the more generalist – such as Citi’s two-year management programme in Hong Kong that rotates trainees around all core businesses in its Institutional Clients Group – to the more specialised. DBS, for example, runs an associate scheme in Singapore tailored to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) banking, currently a hot client sector for RMs in Asia.
If you’ve completed your analyst or associate training and opted not to pursue an RM career, it may still be possible to make a career change into the function, given the high demand for RM candidates in Singapore and Hong Kong. Catherine Low, country manager for Singapore at ING Bank, began her career in operations before becoming an RM and credits her understanding of the back-office as a key advantage when dealing with clients.
Singh from Charterhouse adds: “An aspiring RM can first aim to sharpen skills in a given industry or segment, or gather knowledge of risk and credit, before becoming an RM at a more senior level than a trainee would.”
However you get your first relationship manager job in Singapore or Hong Kong, it’s likely that you will do a stint supporting an experienced RM in the day-to-day management of their clients before you get a chance to build your own network, says Jane Ong, a consultant at recruiters Kerry Consulting in Singapore.
The skills you need as a relationship manager in Asia
Banks will only select you for a RM job at the end of your traineeship if they think you are adept at “driving a good conversation” and “engaging a client”, says Singh. The ability to mount aggressive sales pitches isn’t necessary, however. “The selling skills you need are consultative and advisory – especially when dealing with SMEs who don’t have a big internal finance team and are seeking support from the banks,” she adds.
Patience is also required. “Build relationships over the long term and get to know a client’s business so you can tailor banking solutions for their requirements. It is definitely satisfying when you can grow with your clients over time,” says Ong.
RMs in Singapore and Hong Kong enjoy good long-term career prospects, according to recruiters. “The role gives you the opportunity to get to know different functions across the entire bank. You can rise to a senior RM role, head a sector or industry group or ultimately run the corporate bank,” says Ong.
“Or you could move into transaction-banking or treasury roles if you develop specific interests,” she adds. “There are also corporate-banking RMs who end up joining their clients to serve their banking requirements in-house across their panel of bankers.”
For students keen to find out more about relationship manager jobs in Singapore, OCBC regularly hold career talks for students from the island’s three local universities – National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University. “Senior corporate-banking staff and RMs will be there to share their experiences with students,” says an OCBC spokesperson.
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