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[Special thanks to the article contributor, Mr. W, who has work in securities industry for more than 30 years in Taiwan sharing his point of view and observation about the changes these years and current situation.]
I’ve been working for sales department in securities firms in Taiwan for more than 30 years, I have some idea about the changes in this industry in recent years and I would like to provide some advices for those who may consider to work as a securities salesperson, I hope my advice is helpful for you and please consider in detail and carefully for your own good. Of course, all the description here cannot stand for current situation or idea of all securities salespersons in Taiwan.
To be direct, now is year 2022, in this industry, if there is no obvious change in business environment and/or legal regulation in foreseeable future, my suggestion to you is not to join this work if you’re not familiar with it, or, please consider again whether current Taiwan securities work environment allow you to achieve your long term work vision before your making the final decision. Besides, if you would like to actually experience the work situation as a securities broker, providing service to clients and get much more familiarity with financial law, then I will encourage you to set a short term goal first and define a clear timing to withdraw from this job market while the goal has just been fulfilled. Time is valuable; I hope your every work step is helpful to your cash inflow and work or life experience growth:
Securities salespersons’ major works includes (1) providing timely market information, (2)place transaction order timely for clients, and (3)advising and promoting financial investment products.
A.Regarding above (1) and (2), the salespersons’ service advantages mainly rely on the situation that the market information in between the market and investors( especially general investors) is not equal, it leads to…. the salespersons have things to deal with clients or make the works profitable. However, it has been more than 20 years the internet has make information exposed, and on –line order placing service has started since year 1997 in Taiwan; in this situation, in the past, salespersons’ client group is decreasing and has become much more smaller from [ the mass], and now they are the minority investors who are not familiar with computer work or not good at using internet for data searching, and this kind of clients will also decrease gradually in the future, so it causes salespersons having more difficulties to get more clients and will do their business development to extend to above(3).
B.Due to the rise of electronic service work model, in Taiwan market, all the securities firms will provide the clients with its electronic ordering transaction platform to replace manual works. Under this circumstance, the firms would like to compete with lower service charge inevitably, and it directly causes the imbalance between work efforts the salespersons have made and the amount of sales incentives they will receive from it.
a.Please answer the math question: how much percentage of clients’ growth will cause from decreasing service charge 0.1%? Answer: Maybe the Actuaries may know.
b.Please answer the math question: how much amount does the sales incentive would exactly be if the total amount of clients’ transaction doesn’t change but service charge decreases 0.1%?
Answer: general calculation formula in this industry is as below-
[Service charge income generated by each salesperson – fixed operating cost that each salesperson need to cover*( water and power, depreciation, salary( containing sales and non-sales managers, staff insurances…etc. )…) – starting amount of each salesperson’s incentive] * rate of incentive per salesperson - withholding tax = actual sales incentive amount per salesperson
[Service charge income generated by each salesperson – fixed operating cost that each salesperson need to cover*( water and power, depreciation, salary( containing sales and non-sales managers, staff insurances…etc. )…) – starting amount of each salesperson’s incentive] * rate of incentive per salesperson - withholding tax = actual sales incentive amount per salesperson
c.Please let us know your willingness: you could access number of staffs per departments in securities firms’ finance annual reports and analyze its 5-year trend and see the outcome. As a securities salesperson, would you like to deduct the non-sales’ departments staffs’ salary from your incentive base and their number of staffs are 2 times of sales’ staffs? How much of this firm’s operating fixed cost would you like to cover and deduct its number from your earned sales incentive? If to observe firms in other industries, is it possible you would like to sigh like me? 😢 😅
C.Currently, there are securities and financial service firms expand their broker business to Hong Kong and US ….etc. markets of other countries and established overseas investment platform to support Taiwan investors crossing worldwide boundaries. However,
a.Overseas market information is difficult to get; although, they can get timely information, there is also language and translation issues. There are 4 kinds of unsolved significant issues in Taiwan talent market that needs to evaluate whether current situation can support this business or not, such as [languages capability], [professional work ability], [timely supply these talent], and [supply continuously] etc.
b.Overseas investment platform now is just in starting point status in this industry, however, investors’ interest and the potential profitability generated by providing service in this area and its business size have not been concluded yet.
c.There is an idea of combining work power of all financial service holding companies and major securities firms to promote overseas’ investment platform in a work model of strategy alliance, and all the alliance members can utilize it to train qualified professional talent to provide service to mass clients. However, the biggest obstacle may come from the securities firms themselves. The reason is, there is no internal suitable employee to take this work responsibility and support this business, and, current high-level managers may try to stop this business launching due to their work professionals and benefits differ from this, it creates an invisible push-it-out force and the firms are not aware of it. To be direct, current high-level managers may disagree the idea of alliance business establishment though it may bring their firm’s new business success and enhance its industry competiveness but it also has impact on these managers to achieve practicle work benefit(e.g. unexpected awareness may be brought to them knowing their work capability is not enhanced timely and causing big risk to lose their jobs), they vote “not to form this” when they are representative for their firm joining that meeting. It has great possibility to occur things like this.(Yes, it’s human nature they are doing this, and the firms are not aware of it though it brings impact on firms and industry, that is, the current senior executives of securities have grown up in the past generations, and they have contributed greatly. However, the current industry development has made these senior executives actively or passively loses their ability to attract customers, and at the same time, it will also cause resistance or possibility to hinder the development of new businesses).
If you feel above (3) is worth to invest, then, you can consider to work as a bank financial consultant or, go directly to be a bank financial consultant. But, there is always mass recruiting every year, the reason surely is its top 3 high talent turnover rate, product capability and personal work capability, and, indeed, you need to join and work as what it is before you know whether you will be outstanding and its work also meets your work interest and fulfill your long-term career development or not.
By the way, since we talk about salesperson, we inevitably need to mention financial management knowledge and common sense for those who need it for reference: 「In our life, we need to rely on ourselves to establish accurate financial management knowledge and general information, ask frequently, check much more and always question what it is to reduce the risk of being cheated to buy inappropriate products. If we make decision by information provided by financial firms, I advise not to accept it unless you allow it is 1 -week old news, or, it is ensured this investment professional /consultant has gained their own wealth by investing objects based on their own financial judgement, not only by earning salary from the firms they work for. 」.
I hope all the information above is helpful for you. And I also thank this platform providing me an opportunity to share work experience.
[ End ]
This is Emily.
Thank you for viewing this article and thank Mr. W providing his valuable experience.
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I hope you have a great day and get peace and safety and being healthy always. Blessed.
