Laugh-a-minute bean-boffins Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) have taken on 125 graduate trainees as part of its pledge to recruit 1,000 staff in the UK in 2009, but look out young-uns as the firm has also made a commitment to diversity with 31% of its graduate recruits aged over 25 (compared with 18% last year). According to HR Magazine more than two out of five will be dispatched to positions in the City, dealing with capital markets, insurance and investment markets. The big quote comes from the frankly beautiful Sonja Stockton, head of student recruitment who woke me up last night to tell me: “…it’s business as usual in terms of graduate recruitment. Competition is fierce. Graduates may have fewer job opportunities but they still want high quality learning and development.”  Hats off to PWC for knowing how important graduates are to the future of the company. And don’t forget rival KPMG – a little birdy told me they still have positions to fill for this summer…

“You can always spot a Goldman man,” so the saying goes. I used to spot them by their lack of family life, mistress, and flipping great wads of cash. And that they were in the main, arseholes. Then the recession took them down a peg or two, with the bonus pool drying up, and losses reported for the first time in their public history. Not any more. Goldman Sachs has reported a £1.2bn beating expectations – and allowing them to make plans to repay the emergency $10bn loan paid to the bank by the US government. Does this mean the worst is over for the finance firms? Only last week US bank Wells Fargo surprised investors by saying it expected a record net profit for the quarter. Some say don’t get your hopes up: the swell of profit could just have come from these big boys sweeping up some of the work out there as some smaller finance businesses fall.

So after all the broken windows, Jamie Oliver banquets and Prince Philip blunders, the G20 summit ends with over $1trillion going into the world’s economy. The conditions mean the financial industry will be regulated like never before, with hedge funds under their watch for the first time and bonuses having rules and conditions attached. I thought the much ridiculed FSA was supposed to be doing this anyway? Now we’ve got a global finance police force, but it’s all money, lots of money, and when that’s waved under people’s noses, can you halt the nasty base instinct to just want more and more?  Who watches the watchmen, as they say? Tax havens, where the rich can keep their money but not pay tax where they live (step forward Phil Collins) will need to be more free with their information, in the hope that governments will be able to squeeze a little more out of the rich. Many see the current global money markets as a way to keep the rich nations rich and the poor nations poor. Of course the current hiccup looked like closing the gap, so its good to know that of the $1tr a poultry $19bn will be allocated for lending to the poorest countries. Back in your box!!

When they are not “persistently selling alcohol to children” in Blackpool (and fined £6,000 with a 28 day suspension) Tesco makes a mean employer (see today’s blog video on salaries). Good news then that they plan to open 30 new bank branches by the end of the year. New branches will pop up in the aforementioned Blackpool, Bristol and Coventry. While the firm offers all sorts of products from insurance to credit cards, it doesn’t have a current account product. But this is on its way within the next two years, giving other high street banks another reason not to sleep at night. After all, how encouraging would it be for customers to know their hard-earned cash is secured by Tesco’s monstrous assets. Proof, if it were needed: more savings accounts opened up at Tesco in December 2008 than the whole of 2007. If you can get your foot in the door now with their finance brand, you could find yourself working with one of the country’s best banking brands within 5 years. Just a thought…

When I was a child I thought that by 2009 we’d all have our own jet packs, be eating prawn and gravy ice cream, and have toilets that polish your shoes while you’re sat there. All true in Japan, but the rest of us have some catching up to do: it’s really taken this long for a black person to become boss of a FTSE 100 company. Step forward 46-year old Tidjane Thiam to run Prudential. He graduated in engineering before joining McKinsey, then Aviva and eventually onto Group Finance Director of the Pru to await his moment in the sun. His new job will earn him close to £2m a year and is a great advert for progressive thinking from the finance institution against its competitors. A good day for the Pru.