Pros
- Provides a feeling of relative stability. - There are some very smart people around, which makes it a pleasure to work with. You can always find somebody to learn from no matter how senior you are. - There is not a whole lot of pressure felt. So it is a good environment for those who desire to learn from someone you think is good. You would probably be able to find time for that. - Learning is encouraged by the company by provision of various external courses, which they would pay for.
Cons
- Hard to advance in career. Promotions and pay increases are hard to get. Some colleagues argue that nagging is the key but it's not how you want things to work I think. - Good performance is often under-rewarded, unless you get a manager at the right level who fights for the team's numbers (which seems to be rare). During bonus talk you are guaranteed to hear "you did well but the team did not" or "we did well but the bank did not" or "bank did well but you did not". No bonus talk ever happened without an excuse. - Very political starting from low management level. Multiple layers of bosses locally and globally make it a top heavy structure. - Team management decisions (especially firing/hiring) are made behind closed doors and announced post factum. More so in recent years. You may hear that a new colleague/manager is arriving tomorrow or existing colleague is gone 30 mins ago (or yesterday if you were off).