Those guys eat more than 1 meal a day. A packet of curry water rice a day is more than enough to survive. As long as you don't die, you survived.

Isn't that akin to wasting (or at best sub-optimising) 3 of the most important initial years of your career in a field that's suboptimal for your chosen vocation ie. investment banking, for a qualification that useless for investment banking?

Wouldn't it be better to cut your losses (ie. ignore the sunk costs) and spend the next 3 years in an investment bank pursuing a CFA instead?

1. i do hope u get wat i meant, cos i was trying to say if ur objective is to go into IB, better go for auditing, as compared to finance/internal audit. The latter tend to see a smaller pic and ur focus is only on one company for few years with unnecessary depth of experience.

2.  Actually u still can get ACCA membership by working as analyst. no difference. U only need to work in audit/finance, if u wana be an accountant,with those MIA membership or if u wan to sign accounts. If u do have chance to get into banking as analyst, indeed better tho, like wat sean said. But bare in mind not any analyst job. make sure it's either front office, credit analyst or real analyst (as in research/equity/fixed incomce). Not those back office analyst level, like processing dept/finance dept/audit, compliance, etc. 

3.  Nonetheless, do finish up ur 2 last ACCA papers. CFA is very very tough. For IB roles, CFA is indeed more recognised than ACCA, provided ur are capable enuf to get one.