Financial jobs and China financial careers in Retail Banking. Browse available job offers and apply online

Retail banking also encompasses some wealth management services, but this is less about investment advice for high-net-worth individuals and more helping less affluent people make the most of their money. Financial planning services offer savings and investment advice, usually with an aim of securing a comfortable retirement.

However, junior bankers working in branches can expect to be dealing directly with customer queries and complaints face to face. They will service customers at the counter within the branch and attempt to engage with them to recommend suitable products and services. They'll also be expected to sell these products, and deal with administrative functions such as opening or closing accounts, changing customer details or setting up standing orders, for example.

Some of these support functions are also carried out over the telephone and retail banks recruit large numbers of people for their customer service call centres.

Graduates are increasingly the targets of retail banking recruitment and, if they are taken into branches, they are fast-tracked to managerial positions. After a two-year training programme learning about the financial products, leadership and customer service, candidates are either then given the responsibility of managing a branch or leading a sales function.

Away from the traditional retail banking jobs, there are also a whole range of other careers in retail banking.

Banks recruit product managers and product developers to conceive and deliver the services they offer customers, whether that's credit cards, online or mobile banking, or insurance. Connected to these functions are marketing jobs, which identify demand for particular products or services and devise and implement promotional campaigns to take advantage of this. The over-riding term for these types of jobs is 'customer propositions'.

There are also jobs in operations management; whether that's business analysts, change managers or project managers. These roles are responsible for devising operational efficiencies (including downsizing strategies), running the bank's systems and processes, diversifying its product offerings, as well as coming up with ways to transform the way the business operates across finance, risk and technology functions.

Risk is another key function of retail banking. This covers risk at a group level - credit, operational and market risk managers - as well as people advising on whether to issue personal loans and mortgages. Fraud prevention jobs are also integral to retail banks' risk divisions, whether they involve protecting customers' personal details (or information security), anti-money laundering (AML) roles or jobs in preventing bribery and corruption.