As Wall Street cuts jobs and regulation tightens, bankers are leaving the industry for another emerging, but less lucrative option — financial tech startups.
According to a Bloomberg article Sunday, the world of fintech has become more appealing to bankers as they look for a change in career and technology advances in finance.
Although the switch means going from making high figure salaries to nothing, bankers told the publication that the potential impact and opportunity in their work was worth the cost.
The article cites data showing that the biggest banks in the U.S. and U.K. have cut headcount by 350,000 since 2008. Bond brokering jobs have also decreased by 212,000 since then.
In contrast, tech positions such as software development and cybersecurity are plentiful at more than 500,000 openings. McKinsey & Company data also counts more than 12,000 startups in banking right now.
Slightly more than half of employees surveyed at European banks were contemplating a job change this year. One employee at an executive search firm told Bloomberg he’s seen a notable uptick in interest in the past five years.
“Seven out of ten conversations I have with investment bankers now end with them asking me to keep them in mind for jobs in technology,” Eric Anderson from Egon Zehnder International told Bloomberg.
