As a Banker, you understand money. You understand accounting, finance and investing. But when it comes to side hustles, are you truly familiar with the side business opportunities out there?
My name is Anand and I worked for various corporate and investment banks in my career during my near 20 year career. I worked in Trading, Risk and Consulting within Financial Services so I can understand where you’re coming from. I have various side hustles, ranging from real estate to online businesses. In this article I take you through the side business ideas for bankers and financial professionals with limited time.
(I help Finance professionals start an income online from scratch – alongside your job. I provide tips, tools and resources so that you can build and scale an online business without making the same mistakes I did!)
Introduction
Listen, I get it – even though most Bankers are on high salaries, that usually means high living expenses such as:
- Mortgage
- School fees
- Dependencies
- Credit card and loans
- Car payments
- Insurance
- Leisure and vacation
Also these days, banks are just not as reliable as most people think. Jobs are not secure, so it makes sense to look to create multiple sources of income.
I want to go through 9 profitable side business ideas for Bankers in 2023, give you the pros and cons and point you to the best resources on getting started.
For Bankers (and other people working long hours in the financial industry), any side business you’d want to start should need minimal ongoing input of your time and money.
Of course, there will be an initial set up time and cost, but you don’t really want to commit significant time during the day on that business – especially when you have your 8am to 8pm job!
This post is also useful for people who work in the financial industry in general.
1. Day Trading
These days, you can start open up a brokerage account with many companies like eToro and Plus500 and start using their trading platforms.
The platforms can be quite sophisticated and have more than enough tools for you to trade during the day. You can trade in stocks, FX, commodities or crypto – for as little as $10 initial capital. Most trading platforms are also regulated.
From my experience of trading, it’s so important to have your strategy (which should include risk management) and stick with it!
Also, with day trading – you are the one placing the trades, so you have to know your entries and exits. This requires planning and researching the markets prior to start of trading day.
It’s an option, but not if you’re already super busy working long hours.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| You understand markets | Requires a strict mindset |
| You understand price action | Time spent researching stocks and markets |
| Can set up with minimal capital | Time spent monitoring price activity and news |
2. Algorithmic Trading
There are a growing number of companies that let you use their proprietary trading algorithm tools – for a fee/subscription. Auvoria Prime is one that I used in the past.
With algorithmic trading or ‘copy-trading’, you deposit a certain amount (usually at least $5000) of trading capital and then let the ‘algo’ trade on your behalf. It places trades, manages and exits the trade (based on default strategy settings, or your own customization).
Ideally, look for a company with a long history of results with their strategy.
Also be wary of company’s that promise high daily returns or ‘guaranteed profit’, as algos are not perfect and losses (something large) can occur.
Algorithmic trading is great if you want a ‘hands-off’ way of earning money. Consider it passive income, but you really don’t want to commit large amounts of money until you’re confident with the results.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Little involvement by you | Not your ‘asset’ |
| Can customize risk and return parameters | Not all providers are reliable, and withdrawals may take longer |
| Algo can break down in times of market turmoil (large losses!) |
3. Finance Blogging
If you have a lot to share, blogging or article writing is a great way.
Blogging is especially great if you like writing and your chosen subject requires a detailed explanation.
The great thing with blogging is anyone can do it, and it’s a low-cost option. These days you can set up a website quickly, easily and cheaply.
Also, you can become an authority in your subject matter. Perhaps it’s a niche subject or area of Finance that not many people know about. Consider this blog by ex-Banker Financial Samurai who has become known as a guru in personal finance.
Within your blog, you can even promote other related online products and services. This is known as affiliate marketing, and if the reader clicks on that product and makes a purchase – you get a commission.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Subject matter expert | Requires a lot of your time to research and draft the article (including optimizing for SEO) |
| Allows you to ‘plug’ other products | May need to update the blog (at least annually) if statistics are involved |
| Your asset | Can take time to rank on Google |
| Low cost (just have to pay domain hosting and web design package) |
4. Online Course
Creating an online course is another side business idea for Bankers in 2023. If you have a specialism, and feel more people can benefit from this knowledge – then why not create an online course?
Courses are easy to create (see Kajabi) and if you can help people solve a problem, then your course stands to do well.
You may even find that your blog articles can be used as material for your course. The great thing about an online course is that you just have to build it once, market it, and make recurring income from course sales.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Create a product based on your niche knowledge | Subscription cost to course platform provider |
| Your asset | Initial time spent researching and producing the course |
| Create once | |
| Allows for scaling |
5. Online Consulting
While a course is a one-to-many solution, you may feel that one-to-one consulting suits your offer better.
Perhaps you can guide someone on how to achieve a certain result, for example helping college students get into Banking.
Or maybe consult someone on how to raise capital – if this is something you did in your Banking job.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Provide one-to-one or group consulting services in your niche area | Requires commitment of your time |
| Clients willing to pay highly for your time | Hard to scale |
6. Investment Management
There are a lot of people with surplus cash interested in investing their money, but don’t have the right guidance or expertise. Or maybe they’ve been burnt in the past!
You can offer them advice on how best to invest their money to meet their needs. This might be for growth, capital preservation, regular income or to pay kid’s college fees in the future.
Just ensure that you have disclosed your side business to your employers. Giving investment advice can be considered as a conflict of interest to your employer’s clients.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Put your insight and expertise to helping people | Requires commitment of your time |
| Opportunity to be competitive and charge less fees than traditional investment managers | May have to obtain additional certifications to handle client assets |
| Potential conflict with work |
7. Property Investment
Property investment models include rentals (buy-to-lets) and flipping (developing). However, the method you choose depends on your available capital, local market conditions and access to reliable contractors (in the case of flipping).
Investing in property is great in the long term, but for your first few deals it helps to have liquid cash to place a deposit.
Of course, you have to wary of costs like taxes, insurance, service charges and unexpected maintenance costs.
| pros | cons |
|---|---|
| Real estate generally goes up long term | Requires large capital outlay |
| Physical asset | Have to budget for taxes, service charges, maintenance expenses |
| Can leverage equity to acquire more properties | Consider appropriate strategy based on market cycle |
8. E-Commerce
An increasing number of physical products are bought online. Amazon is the largest marketplace seller in the world, bringing in more than $600bn of sales in 2022.
If you have a product idea that you want to develop and sell online, then Amazon is your best bet.
The great thing with e-commerce is that you can customize a product to your preference and with your brand logo. Of course, a lot of market research will need to be done as with any product to determine demand, price, and competition. But the ability to scale is superb with Amazon.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Amazon has a huge share in e-commerce market | Time researching a product |
| Range of products to customize and sell on a trusted platform. | May have to commit to a minimum order quantity (‘MOQ’) with the supplier when testing a product |
| Can scale easily | Margins have become increasingly tight |
| Certain niches are very competitive |
9. Affiliate Marketing
If you’re looking for a business model where you have a ready-made product, logistics and operations already in place – then affiliate marketing is perfect.
You essentially act as ‘affiliate’ for a company, promoted and selling their products. For every sale made of that product (via your unique affiliate link), you receive a commission. In some cases, commission can be up to 90% of the sale price.
You can market products through your own website, your social media, email list or just through word of mouth.
If someone is looking to start a business online around their day-job, then I would always recommend affiliate marketing. Most companies and brands offer an affiliate program for their products, and joining their affiliate program is generally free too.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| You act as the middle man | Little control over pricing, features and customer experience |
| No need to worry about fulfilment, customer service, etc | |
| Margins are attractive | |
| Can scale easily |
Conclusion
In this post, I shared with you 9 profitable side business ideas for Bankers. Considering you have little time during the day to set up a business and run it, I listed those ideas I felt were best suited to you.
In conclusion, I’d say affiliate marketing is a great model to get up and running very quickly and requires minimal supervision.
It is considered a ‘hands-off’ business model, and once your metrics are positive – then the business can be scaled.
If you’re looking for detailed guidance on how to start and run an affiliate marketing business, including how to best promote a product – then check out this free workshop below:
