What the Hell Do FIG Bankers Even Do?

Serious question—has anyone, at any level, ever been able to explain what FIG bankers actually do? Because from where I’m sitting, it seems like a bunch of Excel monkeys pretending they understand regulatory capital requirements while structuring deals no one actually cares about.

Let’s break this down. You get into banking because you want to work on high-stakes M&A, LBOs, distressed debt, whatever. FIG? Congrats, you’re now modeling insurance float assumptions, pretending you know what Basel III is, and trying to sound smart about things like “tangible book value” and “risk-weighted assets.” Sounds thrilling.

Other groups work on real transactions—companies getting acquired, merging, raising capital for expansion. FIG? You’re knee-deep in bank recapitalizations and capital adequacy ratio adjustments that take 12 months to close because some regulator needs to approve them. Enjoy updating a model 45 times because the Fed has to sign off on a regional bank merger that affects 12 people in Kansas.

And don't even get me started on insurance M&A—yeah, because nothing screams “high finance” like adjusting actuarial reserves and talking about policyholder surplus. Real sexy stuff.

Everyone in FIG talks about “exit opps” like they exist. News flash: you’re not going to PE. Megafunds don’t care that you spent two years modeling goodwill impairment for a credit union merger. You’re either:

• Sticking around in banking because you’ve become a regulatory finance nerd
• Moving to an insurance company to do FP&A and die inside
• Going to a bank’s corporate strategy team where your job is…to talk to other FIG bankers

Meanwhile, your buddy in RX just closed a billion-dollar distressed debt deal, and your boy in M&A is getting PE looks while you’re debating the impact of CECL on mid-sized banks' loan portfolios.

If you tell someone in finance that you work in FIG, their response is either, “Damn, that’s brutal,” or “Oh, so you don’t do real banking?” And they’re right. FIG isn’t banking—it’s accounting with extra steps.

So next time you see a FIG analyst flexing about their "technical work," just remember it’s only technical because no one else understands it, and no one wants to.