Personal banker

Kick start your journey to the career world with sales responsibility builds the foundation for your future career advancement. I will not discuss the importance of sales skill here, but rather on HOW to start a sales related position that will fully maximize our value gain.

Contrary to the way people think sales job is the "short cut" to earn above average income, although sales position is usually paid higher because almost they are the cash generator in every business.

Talking about sale related job,
When you are young, learning, creativity, global view come first.

                         GET JOB RELATED TO YOUR GOAL
First, you need to have a clear goal. Plan your sales career related to your goal, so you own your goal in the end.
For eg, Dream to be developer? work as real property agent. Dream to be rich from investment? be financial consultant such as insurance agent or banker.
Don't go and sell cosmetic when your dream is to own plantation, Don't be Dutc* Lady sales exec if you want to be successful in printing industry.
Pls do something closely-related to your dream field. You don't want after 3 years of sales experience, after finding non related to your dream field only you console yourself saying sales skill helps in starting business right?

                                  SOCIAL VALUE COUNTS
Second, go for the sales job with the highest social value. Ya, I know you don't mind how your friend, your relative and your parent comment/criticize about your current sales job, but please calculate the value of your current sales job.
Using the example of a Personal Banker and Insurance Agent (financial consultant), we shall evaluate the value from the 3 perspective below:
Value is calculated from
social respect,
training and learning,
expectation

Social respect  - You can say you don't mind how people look at you, but you can't stop how people value you. For example, if you are joining politic one day, the value of your current job will determine you importance in the political party. You may be the best negotiator, but without past references you will not be assigned important post, which you won't have chance to show how good you are.

You may not mind, but it is taking away your future opportunity.
Imagine a personal banker and insurance agent( so called financial consultant) joined a community organization, both of them sell same product, have the same professional qualification, same experience in customer relation, but why banker is given position such as treasury, position that required financial knowledge and trust while the insurance agent need to work hard to build his integrity before assigned to treasury position?
Thank.

training and learning - Self-employed business such as insurance agent and direct sales agent do provide training like training provided to sales personnel. In term of personal touch and practical experience, those self-employed business they really train you to become somebody who can melt customer's heart. However the latter is usually training provided by large corporate, training is outsourced which is very professional and fulfilling global standard. The first become the kampung hero but the latter become global player.
Training and work experience in large corporation is more recognized by any third party compare to  "private training"

Expectation - Even from the position title of personal banker and financial consultant, the expectation by public to the banker is definitely much higher. How you children, spouse and relative from you is totally different from the 2 position title mentioned.

                             Job responsibility
Personal banker -
Core:Sells house loan, Islamic loan package, personal loan, commercial loan, investment instruments
Sub: Insurance, FD, balance transfer etc.

Insurance agent
Core: Life insurance, investment link,  medical card,
Sub: motor/car insurance, misc insurance.

The job responsibility is still different, but begin to overlap with the concept of wealth mgmt under one roof.


If your value is just monetary value, i.e. the one earn more is king, you may want to ignore the values I had just mentioned. But i believe in a balance lifestyle, you social value can increase your income, your income can use to buy more social value too.

I always support and like the idea of starting own business or self employed. For those interested in sales and networking, personal banker is a good start. If you are unwilling to be tied in employment, you may get a taste of full-time self employed for insurance or direct sales, but you need to get your Key Performance Index from time to time, ensure that your progress is fulfilled. Eventually, youth comes once!

Sustainability of Islamic Finance

The view of a market practitioner.

 "The decision not to set up Islamic Window and full fledged Islamic product is one of the corporate strategic move. 

In the early days of Malaysia Islamic Finance, the low cost funding and high profit provides an attractive edge for business, but today, this characteristic is now gone. 

To ensure the competitiveness of Islamic products, Msia government is pumping in subsidies and incentives such as stamp duty waiver for the products. The gov in effort to make Malaysia a regional Islamic Financial hub, is relentlessly encouraging Islamic products, but how long can it sustains? 

If it is successful, bank with both conventional and Islamic window, the cannibalism effect will take place.

Remember, Islamic products are stemming from conventional banking products which is based on Capitalism designed by the Western. To fully implement the Islamic teaching, the financial system has to be revamped. Even though the Islamic window of some banks are are enjoying double digit growth, but their profitability ain't high. 

After all it is not a bad idea for not introducing Islamic window, you know it will be a huge investment if we are going into it."  HOD of Commercial Banking

"If you are interested in  Islamic certification, it is better if you go after CFA which is more well-recognized"  Senior officer in foreign bank



The view of Scholars

"Go and take Inceif certificationin Islamic Finance, as it is recognized worldwide, Islamic Finance is going to prosper at least in the next 100 years! It is not requirement for you to be Muslim to involve in Islamic Finance"

"It is lucrative position as the Syariah advisor in Syariah board which is mandatory requirement of Islamic Banking. You are given first class flight ticket, luxurious accommodation and remuneration not less than US$10k. But you have to be a Muslim...."