When it comes to careers, you can bet that the financial services industry offers a broad range of options. This category includes everything from credit unions to investment banks, and even to hedge fund managers and advisory services. But it also includes all kinds of other roles like insurance agents and mortgage brokers.
It’s easy to think that a career in the finance industry is largely about money management and banking, but there’s much more to it than that. Financial services include all the economic activities that involve the creation, distribution and transfer of funds. The category also includes the companies that manage the financial utilities that enable these activities, including credit and lending organizations. It also includes insurance and the redistribution of risk. And it’s not limited to big banks, either: small community banks and even nonprofits are considered part of this category.
A key element of financial services is enabling consumers to spend their incomes wisely. This means making it possible to buy a home, car and other goods by offering various types of loans. It’s also possible for individuals to save by investing in mutual funds and other products. And the tertiary sector of any economy grows as people are able to use their savings and investments to purchase goods and services.
For businesses, financial services offer ways to maximize their returns by changing their capital structures, engaging in complex deals and doing rapid M&A. They also provide other specialized services like factoring, credit cards and hire purchase finance.