The universities that will get you an investment banking job in Hong Kong and Singapore

To get an investment banking job in Hong Kong, you probably want to go to a Hong Kong university. The same is true of Singaporean banking jobs and Singaporean universities. But which schools in particular give you the best chance of breaking into banking?

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We’ve analysed our candidate database of over 190,000 finance professionals in Hong Kong and Singapore for the most common universities among employees top institutions. In the table below, we’ve looked at employees at 21 major banks, including the likes of UBS and Goldman Sachs as well as Asian banks like DBS, to find what proportion studied at each institution. We’ve segmented the results into Singaporean schools, Hong Kong schools and select international schools. 

The 5 best universities for Singapore banking jobs

In Singapore, the share of candidates among top schools is more concentrated by the top three, with the National University of Singapore (NUS) a clear frontrunner. Further analysis shows only a fraction of graduates at these banks are specifically working in either investment banking or markets teams, with NUS being the most common school in both divisions. If you were to attend one of the schools in the top three, Singapore Management University appears proportionally better for jobs in banking and M&A while Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is more common among markets professionals.

Interestingly, compared to our prior analysis of the Singaporean job market at large, the market share of these schools is much smaller at the major banks. Other major Singaporean institutions like INSEAD and the Management Institute of Singapore don’t have a significant number of graduates in banking compared to the 5 biggest schools. 

The 5 best universities for Hong Kong banking jobs

In Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is the safest bet for a job in banking. The share of graduates per school doesn’t change much when looking specifically at investment banking or markets teams, aside from Hong Kong Baptist University being a particularly weak pipeline for front-office jobs.

CUHK has risen in prominence over the past decade. In 2015, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) looked the best school for banking jobs while Hong Kong University (HKU) was a frontrunner for markets jobs. Now, they’ve each fell behind CUHK. 

Where you should study might depend on the bank you want to work for. Goldman Sachs, as of 2023, still seemed to overwhelmingly prefer hiring from HKU and HKUST.

The best international universities for banking jobs in Hong Kong and Singapore

Interestingly, Hong Kong appears to be more receptive to international students, or at least has a few favourite schools when hiring from abroad. For ‘haigui’, Both Hong Kong and Singapore notably appreciate London School of Economics students, but outside of that, banks don’t meaningfully hire from any specific international schools in Singapore. In Hong Kong, meanwhile, both the University of New South Wales in Australia and Harvard in the US provide a meaningful number of candidates. 

Chinese universities are thought to be a source of top finance talent in Asia, but the big five didn’t represent a meaningful number of the talent base in Hong Kong or Singapore outside of Peking University. It may be a case of quality over quantity for students leaving the mainland; after all, Peking has sourced many of finance’s elite, including Citadel Securities CEO Peng Zhao.

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