The industry map

The atlas is organised by subject: instruments that trade on one side, transactions that are negotiated on the other. That is the right way to arrange the material and it says nothing about the people who do this for a living. This page is the other axis — the seat rather than the subject — and it exists because a reader arriving with I have an interview at a hedge fund or what does a structurer actually do found the material here and no door into it.

Three levels: which side of the price somebody is on, which group the seat belongs to, and the seat itself. Everything below links back into the pages that explain the instruments — nothing here explains an instrument a second time.

What this is not. It is not careers advice and it does not describe any named employer. Firms genuinely disagree about where the lines fall: structuring sits in markets at one bank and in the investment bank at another, private credit is an asset-management product in one house and a private-markets fund in the next. Where that matters it is said rather than smoothed over. All of it is information and education only — see the disclaimer.

In short

53 seats, in six groups, on two sides of one question: who is quoting, and who is choosing. 46 of them have a page here and the other 7 are the transaction desks, which already do.

Sell-SideQuotes the price and stands behind it.

Banks and brokers. They make a market, arrange a transaction or underwrite an issue — and are paid for the service and for carrying the risk in between. The seat is judged on the flow it wins and the risk it does not get stuck with.

Investment Banking

Advising on and arranging the things a company does once rather than daily: being bought, listing, borrowing at size, restructuring what it already owes.

M&AMergers & AcquisitionsAdvises a company being bought, buying, or defending.Open the desk ECMEquity Capital MarketsSells shares — a first listing, a follow-on, a block.Open the desk DCMDebt Capital MarketsSells bonds, and manages what a borrower already owes.Open the desk LevFinLeveraged FinanceFunds a purchase with more debt than the business carried.Open the desk RXRestructuringWorks on debt that cannot be paid as written.Open the desk StructuredStructured FinanceLends against an asset rather than against a borrower.Open the desk ValuationValuation & Deal AnalysisPuts the number on it, and says what the number assumes.Open the desk

Markets

Quoting, holding and hedging instruments for clients who want to buy or sell them — and building the ones that do not exist off the shelf.

SalesSalesCarries the market to a client and the client back to the desk.Open the page TradingTradingQuotes a price, holds the position that results, and hedges it.Open the page StructuringStructuringBuilds the instrument that does what nothing off the shelf does.Open the page ResearchResearchPublishes a view, and is read by people who may disagree with it.Open the page PrimePrime ServicesFinances a fund's positions and holds them, for a fee.Open the page

Every markets seat is described by a pair: what it does and what it does it in. The eleven asset classes are the second half — the same eleven the atlas is built on, because there is only one shelf on this site.

The eleven: Cash Equities Equity Derivatives Fixed Income Rates Derivatives Credit Derivatives Foreign Exchange FX Derivatives Money Markets Commodities Alternatives & Private Markets Digital Assets

Buy-SideDecides whether to take it.

The institutions that own the money — funds, insurers, pensions, endowments and the households behind them. They choose what to hold and for how long, and are judged on what the holding did, against something.

Asset Management

Running portfolios against a stated objective for clients who are usually institutions. Mostly liquid instruments, mostly measured against an index or a liability.

PMPortfolio ManagementDecides what the fund holds, and against what it is measured.Open the page IndexIndex & ETF ManagementTracks something exactly, which is harder than choosing.Open the page Fund OpsFund OperationsPrices it, settles it and reports it — the half nobody sees.Open the page

Private Markets

Buying companies, funding new ones and lending to them directly — with capital committed for years and a value that is an opinion until somebody buys it.

PEPrivate EquityBuys a company with borrowed money and sells it later.Open the page VCVenture CapitalFunds companies that mostly do not work, for the ones that do.Open the page Private CreditPrivate CreditLends directly, without a bond market in between.Open the page Real AssetsInfrastructure & Real AssetsOwns the thing itself — a road, a grid, a building, a field.Open the page SecondariesSecondariesBuys a fund stake from somebody who wants out early.Open the page

Hedge Funds & Alternatives

Funds that may go short, use leverage and hold instruments an index does not contain — organised by the idea they are expressing rather than by the asset class it lives in.

L/SLong/Short EquityOwns some shares and is short others, on purpose.Open the page MacroGlobal MacroTrades what a government or a central bank is about to do.Open the page QuantQuantitative & SystematicWrites the rule, tests it, and lets it place the trades.Open the page EventEvent DrivenTrades a dated outcome: a deal closes, or it does not.Open the page RVRelative ValueTwo things that should cost the same, and do not.Open the page DistressedDistressed & Special SituationsBuys the debt of a company in trouble, and reads the document.Open the page

Wealth Management

Advising individuals and families rather than institutions, where tax, succession, a concentrated holding and somebody's own nerve are part of the problem rather than noise around it.

Private BankPrivate BankingOne balance sheet, held and lent against for a family.Open the page AdvisoryInvestment AdvisoryRecommends rather than decides, and records why.Open the page Family OfficeFamily OfficesOne family's whole balance sheet, run as an institution.Open the page

Insurance & Pensions

The largest asset owners there are, and the only ones whose liabilities are written before the assets are bought: a claim that may arrive, or a pension that certainly will.

UnderwritingInsurance UnderwritingPrices a risk somebody else does not want to carry.Open the page Insurance AMInsurance InvestmentInvests the premiums against liabilities already written.Open the page PensionsPensions & RetirementOwes a payment in thirty years and invests towards it.Open the page

BankingTakes the deposit, makes the loan, moves the money.

The oldest business in finance and the largest by headcount: holding other people's money and lending it to somebody else for longer than it was deposited. Nothing here trades on a screen, and the mismatch between the two sides is the business rather than a flaw in it.

Retail & Business Banking

Current accounts, savings, cards, mortgages and small business credit. The part of finance almost everybody uses and almost nobody on a trading floor can describe.

BranchBranch & Relationship BankingThe bank a household actually meets, and what it can decide.Open the page MortgagesMortgage & Consumer CreditLends against a house, or against a salary, for years.Open the page DepositsDeposits & PaymentsHolds the money and moves it — the bank's cheapest funding.Open the page DigitalDigital & Product BankingBuilds the account, prices it, and watches who leaves.Open the page

Corporate & Transaction Banking

Lending to companies, running the accounts their cash moves through, financing what they ship, and managing the bank's own balance sheet behind all of it.

LendingCorporate LendingLends to a company against its cash flow and its covenants.Open the page TransactionTransaction BankingRuns the accounts a company's money actually moves through.Open the page TradeTrade & Supply Chain FinanceFinances goods between a shipment and a payment.Open the page TreasuryTreasury & ALMFunds the bank itself, and prices the mismatch it runs.Open the page

The customerThe company every seat above is selling to.

Not a firm in finance at all: an ordinary company's own finance function, which is the customer for most of what the sides above sell. It sat under the system for one release, which was wrong in a way worth naming — a treasurer sets no rules and runs no plumbing; they are the one being quoted a price.

The Client Side

A company's own finance function: the treasurer who actually signs the hedge, and the team that explains the results to the investors who own the shares.

TreasuryCorporate TreasuryInside a company: funds it, hedges it, and keeps it liquid.Open the page IRInvestor RelationsExplains the company to the people who own it.Open the page

The system around itSets the rules, runs the plumbing, keeps the score.

Nobody's counterparty and everybody's constraint: central banks and supervisors, the exchanges and clearing houses a trade passes through, and the firms that publish a rating or an index everybody else quotes.

Central Banks & Supervisors

The institutions that issue the currency, set the policy rate, lend when nobody else will, and decide what a bank is allowed to hold and how much capital it must hold against it.

Central BankCentral BankingSets the rate, issues the currency, lends when nobody will.Open the page SupervisionSupervision & RegulationDecides what a firm may hold and what it must hold against it.Open the page

Market Infrastructure

Exchanges, clearing houses, custodians and the firms that publish a rating, an index or a price. None of them takes the other side, and everything passes through them.

ExchangesExchanges & ClearingMatches the trade, then stands between the two sides of it.Open the page CustodyCustody & Securities ServicesHolds the asset in somebody's name and proves it is there.Open the page Ratings & DataRatings, Indices & DataPublishes the letter, the index and the price everyone quotes.Open the page

In every firm aboveNot a kind of firm — a kind of seat.

The seats that take no position and without which no position can be taken: whoever says no, whoever proves the number, whoever makes it settle, and whoever writes the system it settles in. A bank has them, so does a fund, so does an exchange — which is why they are a band of their own rather than a line under one of the others. They are judged on what did not happen, the hardest thing in finance to be paid for.

Risk, Compliance & Audit

The second and third lines: measuring what the firm could lose, deciding what it is not permitted to do, and checking afterwards that the first two actually happened.

RiskRisk ManagementMeasures what the firm could lose, and sets the limit.Open the page ComplianceCompliance & Financial CrimeDecides what the firm is not permitted to do, and proves it.Open the page AuditInternal AuditChecks afterwards that the controls were real.Open the page

Operations & Technology

Settling it, reconciling it, proving the profit and loss is real, and writing the systems all of that runs on. Invisible from a price screen and unavoidable from every other seat.

OpsOperations & SettlementMakes the trade settle, and chases the one that did not.Open the page Product ControlProduct Control & FinanceProves the profit the desk reported is the profit there is.Open the page TechTechnology & Quantitative DevelopmentWrites and runs the systems every other seat depends on.Open the page

How to use it

If you know the seat, open its page: what it does, what a day looks like, what it is measured on, how it goes wrong, and the concepts underneath it.
If you know the subject, start from the atlas or the transactions instead, and let the page tell you which seats touch it.
If you have an interview, the prep guides are arranged around the deadline rather than around the subject, and every desk and asset class carries the questions an interview asks about it.