Future bankers vie for coveted spots in Singapore universities' finance clubs

At Singapore universities, undergraduates are fighting for the golden ticket they believe will get them a coveted banking job: membership in a campus finance club.

- 

Lengthy interview rounds and days of working on PowerPoint slides have become de rigueur as a gloomier job market in the banking and trading hub raises the stakes for undergraduates seeking a career in finance.

"It's low-key crazy. It's quite absurd how competitive it is," said Ms Maya, a social sciences graduate from the National University of Singapore who declined to give her last name and now works at a global payments firm. The pressure was worth it, she said, adding: "Without it, I wouldn't be able to 'sell myself' to the recruiters who have thousands of business students they can choose from."

Her angst comes as financial institutions in Singapore have added fewer people in recent years. Undergraduates view the clubs as a crucial line on their resumes, adding to a hyper-competitive cauldron for students in Singapore alongside tuition and so-called internship-stacking.

As hiring gets tighter, the number of graduates from popular business and administration courses has climbed for most of the past decade. It topped more than 3,500 in 2023, according to government statistics. And while 84 per cent of business graduates found jobs in 2024, that is a decline from the previous two years.

Trade wars and market turmoil may worsen the outlook for young bankers around the world who are also grappling with the rise of artificial intelligence.

Those threats are magnified in Singapore, where finance looms large in a population of six million and is seen by many as the clearest path to success.

Global and Singapore banks, including Citigroup, surveyed by Bloomberg News say they use a broad set of criteria to evaluate entry-level applicants.