1 question guys, concerning the RM140k pay for fresh graduate. Typically, where does that fresh graduate come from? Malaysian universities or overseas?

Are you sure KL pay is double Sg's? (following your assumption of 1:1 parity)

My understanding (based on my senior last year and my classmate now) is that it's more like 1.4 times. (following your assumption of 1:1 parity) Btw, I'm in NTU now.

I'm assuming that that RM140k is pay for fresh grad in investment banking division by foreign investment banks in KL.

And if we take a more realistic purchasing power parity, I believe the ratio should be even lower than 1.4.

Well, can anyone confirm?

I believe if you can get into investment banking division, the compensation should be very competitive. But how many leading financial institutions actually have investment banking division in KL is another story.

Just curious, so I did a little search for investment banking in KL. Apparently, these banks have some sort of investment banking presence in KL (I lumped the banks according to home region, but not in particular order individually):

UBS (Securities)
Credit Suisse (Investment banking & rep office)
Barclays Capital (Investment banking)
Royal Bank of Scotland (Trading and advisory, so there's investment banking here)
Deutsche Bank (Trading and investment banking with support from Sg office)
BNP Paribas (Corp finance advisory and equity research and also asset management. So there's investment banking here)
ABN Amro (I don't know what services are they offering here)
Macquarie ("Our range of services on offer in Malaysia includes equity research and trading, corporate advisory and structured finance.")
Merrill Lynch (Function not specified)

Notable absence include:
Goldman Sachs
Morgan Stanley
JPMorgan

Looks like Europeans (And Australian) have stronger presence in KL, compared to Americans.

From what I learn from my friend (who got an internship in one of the firms above), hiring in Malaysia seems to be subject to the total number (as well as quality) of personnel hired in SE Asia or Asia Pacific. I don't know if Malaysia is given any specific quota for their hiring in Asia Pacific.

This post has been edited by Tangiers: Mar 20 2009, 07:14 PM