Asset or Wealth Manager?
A DIVE INTO TWO OF THE HOTTEST BANKING JOBS RIGHT NOW

It goes without saying that banking is still among the most popular job sectors worldwide to date. This holds just especially truer for Indonesia, whose market is expected to steadily grow in this decade, with plausibility to become the seventh-largest economy globally by 2030, according to McKinsey researchers (Agarwal, et.al., 2021). The prospect for the country's banking industry to flourish is almost inevitable, considering the projected growth of future investment services demand. Professions in the banking industry may vary diversely. In addition to those regularly found in every corporation like human resources and technological supports, some job positions specific for banks are usually open, with two of which are Asset and Wealth Managers. Although seemingly similar or even interchangeable – seemingly enough to make it not uncommon for job seekers to confuse between them – these two commonly considered the hottest professions in the financial realm possess distinctive traits. So, what are they, basically?

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Both Asset and Wealth Managements are generally considered a part of the Private Banking branch for most multi-services banks. In the narrower sense, Private Banking is defined as a service that includes investment, banking, and other financial services banks provide to wealthy people and their families (Market Business News, 2019). However, more and more banks have been becoming more inclusive in offering Private Banking services, attempting to grab a broader market size by creating tailored and personalized advisory regarding the management of fortunes to clients at different income levels, on top of more affluent ones.

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Sharing a similar characteristic for being a part of Private Banking, how do Asset and Wealth Managements differ? An Asset Manager is a financial professional who manages money and securities on behalf of a client – be it a regular individual, a company, or even a nonprofit – to grow the value of the assets (O'Connell, 2021). A Wealth Manager goes there too, and beyond. In addition to managing clients' money, a Wealth Manager, as explained by Mary Erdoes, the CEO of Asset & Wealth Management of J.P. Morgan, also oversees and controls their balance sheets, i.e., their assets and liabilities, so that their overall wealth can, by the time it is required, meet their personal purposes (Rubenstein, 2021). Thus, a Wealth Manager offers a holistic and personal-goal-oriented service that suits the clients' needs. These needs, especially for individual clients, may include, for instance, education and pension planning.

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Both Asset and Wealth Managers have notoriety for becoming two highly lucrative jobs. One source mentions that an Asset Management Associate working in Indonesia may earn an annual salary of up to 216,000,000 IDR (Salary Explorer, 2021). The salary earned by a Wealth Manager is no less attractive, with the highest reported record of IDR 151,000,000 per year (Glassdoor, 2021). However, these high salaries should be seen with a grain of salt due to how taxing these two jobs usually are, with dozens of extra hours becoming a norm, especially for early starters.

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Now, the next question is, what does a perfect Asset or Wealth Manager look like? A person with a higher education degree in a domain like finance, business, or accounting is more often than not expected to fill the positions since those majors usually equip their students with investment analysis and management skills crucial for handling the two jobs' responsibilities. Robust quantitative reasoning and analysis competencies are also vital for an Asset or Wealth Manager as they deal with numbers in most of their work. Lastly, it is also essential for them to possess solid communication skills, considering they will have to constantly maintain close ties with their clients. After all, Private Banking is also commonly known as Relationship Management for a reason (Birken, 2020).