Corporate vs Commercial Bank

Hello,

I am an analyst at a Commercial Bank, nothing too fancy. I have done alright, being made a senior analyst in less then a year.

I wasn't nearly aware enough of the professional finance world around me until closer to graduating, so I wasn't on track to intern and get a spot at something higher paying/ more prestigous. That doesn't bother me, I just want a good WLB that will allow me to grow my income from my current $65k with $5k bonus to $150k plus over the next 5 to 10 years. Eventually I plan to have a strong enough real estate portfolio and/or buy and build small businesses so that I am solid for retirement and can grow a greater income ceiling.

The question is, what is the difference between Commercial and corporate banking? If anyone here had some experience in both, could you tell me if the pay is better or has a higher ceiling? Is it a pretty easy transition? Alternatively, if you have been in Commercial Credit and switched to another area of finance, let me know how that went!

Thanks

 
Most Helpful

This has been answered thousands of times on his board. Broadly speaking, commercial banking works with small and/or middle market companies while corporate banking works with large corporations. 

As a result, commercial banking generally focuses solely on senior secured lending while also working with the treasury management team at the bank to provide ancillary banking products (ACH, lockbox, corporate cards, etc.). Typically this includes working capital revolvers, equipment term loans, etc. Corporate banking also directly focuses on senior secured lending in the same way, but also interfaces with other structured finance product groups within large banks including investment banking, debt capital markets (or whatever other product groups your bank maintains) to address the clients strategic financing goals. 

However, every bank is obviously structured differently, and these terms are sometimes colloquially used interchangeably. 

 

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