A mathematician, a statistician, and an accountant apply for a bank job

When

April 21, 2023 | 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Refreshments at 3:00 in Lobby

Where

University Hall 1005

Speaker

Matt Bledsoe, UAB First Horizon Bank & math PH.D. Alum

Abstract

The Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 and the subsequent legal and regulatory reactions to it have increased opportunities for math students to make a career in banking. Coming out of the Crisis, commercial banks (all the way from global banks like JP Morgan and Bank of America down to small regional banks like Cadence or Renasant) were required to forecast how their financial positions would be affected by a future, hypothetical crisis. This requirement dramatically increased banks' needs for folks with education in quantitative fields. In the last 15 or so years, banks have expanded their use of quantitative models and increased their hiring of people capable of developing, implementing, explaining, defending, and communicating them. In this talk I will describe what it's like for a math student to work in banking through the lens of my experience over the last 10 years; summarize the types of problems that models are used to solve across the many departments in a typical bank; the skills that required; and, some of the challenges and opportunities that come with this career path.