Forget the glamour jobs of finance, now is a good time to be a transactional banker.

Although commercial banking recruitment is being affected across the board by credit market woes, transactional banking roles are faring comparatively well, according to Samuel Griffiths, associate director of financial services at Robert Walters Japan.

“Many of the traditional banking functions, such as custodianship, cash management and trade finance, are less affected by the problems in the financial markets, and the demand from clients still remains strong, so the headcount reductions have been less severe,” says Griffiths.

When the market starts to pick up, these kinds of roles will be of growing importance for commercial banks, he adds.

Razin Ashraf, team leader at Hays Banking in Tokyo, has clients who are on the hunt for transactional bankers. “We currently have two open positions within custodianship at a Japanese bank and also one at a foreign bank. We also had a cash management position which was closed recently,” he says.

The transactional banking sector is difficult to break into. Ashraf says candidates must be bilingual and have prior transactional experience. And Griffiths reckons banks generally want people at a set level of seniority, with specific backgrounds.

"They consider that people coming from the securities business or other parts of the financial services industry are not suitable to fill the positions.”