Wall Street's biggest banks turn offices into summer camps for teen coders

[NEW YORK] For the next three weeks, the offices of Wall Street's biggest banks are becoming summer camps for coders.

Bank of America Corp, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co are partnering on FinTech Focus, a programme hosting 80 New York-area high schoolers through Aug 2. They're learning about computer science and financial-services technology. At the end of the boot camp, they'll present their own Web application, according to Upperline Code, which is managing the programme.

"We recognise that the lack of awareness that potential recruits have on the engineering opportunities within financial services isn't an issue that is specific to just Goldman Sachs," Vicki Tung, global head of campus recruiting at the bank, said in a statement.

Training the high schoolers - who are from diverse and underserved backgrounds, according to Upperline - is only the latest move banks have made to invest in a high-tech workforce: Citigroup Inc formed labs to teach traders to code, and Goldman has turned coders into traders.

BLOOMBERG