Over the years, CFA as a course has gained a lot of popularity, more so in India. The growth in number of candidates registering for CFA in India has been rising at 30% YoY for the last 7 years, and today India is the 3rd largest market for CFA after China and US.
This brings a lot of competition among the candidates, both in terms of clearing the exams as well as securing a job. It’s safe to say that the Job seekers in the industry has increased but at the same time finance companies have only started to grow in India.
According to NSE (National Stock Exchange) only 2.3% of the entire Indian population has invested in capital markets where as the figure is close to 78% in US. Now, just imagine the amount of inflow capital markets we will witness when the Indian population gradually starts to move their money from their savings and other asset classes towards capital markets.
Hence, going by all these data points one can easily conclude that there is going be big demand for skilled finance experts for the foreseeable future.
CFA SALARY IN INDIA
We all know how well the banking industry pays, one of the most highly paid industry is banking. In US the average pay of a banker with fair amount of work experience and with any big conglomerate firm is north of USD $ 200,000.
Pay is in par with other industries in the initial 3-4 years of your career but it starts to grow exponentially once you reach a certain level.
A CFA charter with about 15+ years in the industry typically makes a minimum of INR 50,00,000 annually in India. Also the best part about CFA is that recognition starts from level- 1 itself and you can start working while prepping for level 2 and level 3.
As you move up the ladder, the salaries also moves parallel. Given below is data of salaries which a CFA Candidate gets after clearing different levels of examination, in tabular format
| Level of CFA Cleared | Average Annual Salary (INR) |
| Level 1 | 3 to 4.5 Lakh |
| Level 2 | 6 Lakh |
| Level 3 | Above 10 Lakh |
Disclaimer – These figures are based on an average data and vary by a wide margin depending on the work experience, skillset, personality, firm employed in, etc.
SCOPE OF CFA IN INDIA
CFA is a very generic finance course and it is not particularly specified to any particular asset class. CFA covers every asset class on an in depth basis in terms of its core fundamentals and uses. This results in an array of opportunities as it is not confined to just equity or bonds or real estate or derivatives.
CFA opens up career paths in almost every asset class and you will come across CFA(s) in every domain in the industry. Although most CFA candidates want to build their career as a buy side equity analyst and portfolio management but there are a lot many other choices like Quantitative data analyst, Trader, Consultant, Alternate investments, Real estate, Fixed income, Investment banking, Private equity, etc.
So, clearly the scope post CFA is huge, and one can pick their own choice of interest and specialize in that. The scope further widens if one acquires other skill sets necessary in the industry which CFA syllabus does not cover – Financial modeling, Pitch Books, Valuations etc.
EMPLOYERS
This data is collected from CFA institute career website, Indeed, monster, Naukri, Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and some other job portals.
Some of the top Employers looking specifically for CFA are:
- JP Morgan Chase and Co. (JPMC)
- United Bank of Scotland (UBS)
- Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)
- HSBC
- Wells Fargo
- Citi Group
- Morgan Stanley
- HDFC, Kotak Mahindra, ICICI
- Barclays
- Bloomberg
- Carlyle Group
- Blackstone
- Goldman Sachs
- Fidelity
- Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PWC
- Standard Chartered
- Jefferies
- Bluecrest Capital
- General Atlantic
- Deutsche Bank
- Bank of America
- Merrill Lynch
- BNP Paribas
- Bajaj Finance
- Nomura
These are some of the top firms that recruit CFA Charter holders and anywhere between 1% to 6% of the entire workforce in these organizations are a CFA.
ROLES OFFERED BY TOP EMPLOYERS
Roles are mainly in the capital markets, divided across different asset classes within the market. Roles are in the entry level during the start of your career and post you gain your Charter you can expect to move up the ladder into mid-level and executive level roles going ahead. Don’t be shy to grab internship opportunities in these roles at the start of your career as it is very crucial to understand what exactly that role entails and what responsibilities they come with.
Below are some of the most aimed at roles and also the ones with the highest number of CFAs currently present in:
- Buy Side Equity Research
- Research Analyst
- Portfolio Management
- Risk Management
- Financial Advisory
- Consultancy
- Trading in various asset classes
- Investment Banking
- Accounting/ Auditing
- Corporate Finance
- Private Equity/ Venture Capital
- Merchant Banking
