Need advise on breaking into IBD/FO roles (APAC)

Hello all,

long time lurker, first time poster here. Thought I should post to see if I could gain some insight and/or to see if I still have a chance or I should just give up to break into IBD/FO roles.

To give a bit of my background, Econ background from top 10 US undergrad program (non-US citizen, West coast), low gpa around 3.0 (my school has a reputation with low gpa) graduated around 2019 (got hit by COVID and Trump era), interned at a local CPA office for less than a year supporting bank reconciliations and tax returns. Eventually got fed of the tedious tasks a small shop does, scored a customer service role from a reputable Market Data vendor (think BBG, Reuters, S&P etc) and relocated to Hong Kong for a new start.

Post relocation, I've been settling down for an year and started to network, polishing my technical skillsets (focusing on market knowledge) for interviews. I'm opting for FO roles but seems like the majority of jobs I see 'require' Mandarin or Cantonese (I do speak an Asian language in native level, just not those two). Most other jobs are either not FO related (I'm more interested in investing or valuation) or require 3~5 years of exp which seems like a wall to jump over.

At this point, I feel like the 'edge' my school name gives is depreciating fast. I am excelling at my current role which is plain BO (does give exposure to FO sales, but it's an enterprise sales role), but there are no transferrable skillsets to appeal when I interview with external shops. My current team is offering me to an advanced role where it helps clients to solve finance related questions but I feel like that still has distance from experiences at a Bank, fund etc

(edit)The advanced role does train for financial concepts covering FICC, equities and also with some excel modeling alongside with coding in python, SQL.

I'm currently considering either to grind for the CFA til level 3 (2~3 year range) while keep applying to FO roles (mostly focusing on Asset Management) and/or to progress with the corp ladder for about 2~4 years and rebrand myself with another USA MBA (luckily my family can support the finances).

From a senior perspective who is already in the industry, any insights will be greatly appreciated (even better if you are a professional in APAC)

Thanks

P.S. I'm getting a lot of headhunter reach outs from BB MO roles(GS/JPM/MS), but post-trade settlements seem quite similar with what I was doing in the CPA office and does not relate much to FO.
Would the BB branding help to progress or keeping my head down and grinding till FO opportunity sound better?