New analyses have revealed that employees leave major banks and some of the biggest technology companies for fintech start-ups.
A workplace intelligence company, Revelio Labs, has compiled data that shows engineers, bankers, sales staff, and data scientists from Wall Street and Silicon Valley are among the employees joining the exodus.
According to Revelio, a departure from major banks such as HSBC Holdings Plc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to fintech companies including Revolut Ltd. and Coinbase Global Inc. has gone up 75% since the pandemic. This march saw the job changes peak at 72, the highest since 2011. Many employees are also leaving tech companies like Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.Com Inc.
New pastures
The growing number of highly qualified candidates opting for roles in new sectors amidst tight market conditions allows tech employees to seek job changes with a higher salary and flexible work routines.
According to Reivilo economist Lisa Simon, people are now re-evaluating what is good for them. They look for improved pay, better work-life balance, and better career prospects, among the key motivators.
According to Bloomberg News, from January 2020 till April 2022, 37 staff moved from Goldman Sachs to Coinbase, the US’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange. Another 27 employees from Goldman joined Brex Inc., a corporate credit card start-up, and 18 staff went over to SoFi Technologies, a fintech start-up by Anthony Noto, an Ex- Twitter Inc. Executive.
However, the number of staff leaving and joining start-ups and Fintech is small compared to the total number employed by the tech giants and financial services companies. Goldman Sachs Inc. alone employs 45,100 employees globally.
Other banks like HSBC saw 38 employees going to Revolut and 21 staff to Monzo Bank Ltd. Rival bank Monzo has also hired 32 staff from Lloyd Banking group Plc and 27 from Barclays Plc. Morgan Stanley lost 28 workers to Coinbase and 12 staff to Wise Plc., which has around 400 job vacancies, according to the company spokeswoman.
While HSBC and Morgan Stanley made no comments, Barclays Chief operating officer Mark Ashton-Rigby in an email statement and a Lloyds spokeswoman, said they place workplace culture important in their bank. Ashton-Rigby noted that employees with tech roles at Barclays have grown by 10% in the last two years, which is proof of the compelling proposition offered by Barclays.
Christian Faes – Co-founder of LendInvest and chair of the Fintech founders’ industry group, said that there is a war for talent considering the high regulatory requirements in the banking sector, where there are legacy people, processes, and technology.
According to Faes, they are hiring high-tech engineers from Amazon and Facebook even though these talents do not get attracted to banks with coding systems since the 1980s. Coinbase has alone snapped up 197 staff from Amazon, 73 from Microsoft, 97 from Alphabet Inc., and 72 from Meta Platform Inc, according to Revelio data.
