Survey: BofA No. 28, RBS No. 36 best bank to work at in North America

NEW YORK – Bank of America Corp. and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc., parent of Providence-based Citizens Financial Group Inc., came in in the Top 50 North American banking firms to work for, according to a survey of bankers conducted by industry website Vault.com.
Goldman Sachs took the top spot, followed by The Blackstone Group and J.P. Morgan Investment Bank in the inaugural year of the Vault Banking 50.
“We asked banking professionals what matters most to them when choosing an employer. They told us – overwhelmingly – that firm culture is the most important determining factor,” said Derek Loosvelt, Vault finance editor. “In fact, 38.6 percent of all banking professionals we surveyed told us that ‘firm culture’ was most important, while only 15.7 percent cited ‘prestige’ as most important. Vault took this feedback into consideration when creating the new ranking.”
As part of Vault’s annual banking survey, conducted this past April through June, more than 1,300 banking professionals were asked to assess their peer banking firms on a scale of 1 to 10 based on prestige (they were unable to rate their own firm, and were asked to rate only firms with which they were familiar).
They were also asked to rank their own firm in various quality of life categories. A weighted formula was applied to the data culled from these ratings to determine the Vault Banking 50 for 2011.
Bank of America recently announced layoffs of 89 employees at its Lincoln call center, where in January 2009 the company laid off 121 workers.
RBS’ ranking comes days after the Edinburgh-based bank announced it would cut 3,500 jobs. RBS is now 84 percent owned by the U.K. government following a $74 billion bailout.