Retail Banking and Wealth Management Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and was welcomed with opened arms on arrival. Travelling from Belfast to London was very daunting but I was pleasantly surprised as the graduate recruiters help you through the process. They help you meet new people and they help you find your way in the first few weeks. Everyone is very nice and it was a real joy working here and travelling into Canary Wharf each morning.

I felt hugely values throughout my internship. I was given a lot of work to do in head office and it was challenging but enjoyable. You are given a lot of responsibility from the start which i think is a good thing. You learn a lot in the process and the staff help you all the way which is great. During my branch rotation I felt extremely valued as everyone new I was coming and the days were very structures as to who I would be shadowing or what project I would be doing on that specific day.

I was given a lot of support as the staff help you a lot and there is always someone to turn to on your floor. It is great as a lot of the individuals have been in your situation so they are making it their own personal responsibility to go out and help you. Sometimes a lot of people are really busy in the offices though but you always find time to catch up with them. I was given great guidance by being given information on the project work and how I can find documents on the system if I needed to use them.

I like to be extremely busy to be fair so the question may be variable depending on the individual. I had a lot of work to do don't get me wrong but I would have prepared to be put under a little more pressure as I love working in that environment. I had a fair amount of days where I was in the office after 5pm but if you are working in Canary Wharf you really need to expect that. The branch placement was okay though as you get away early enough. Shadowing people keeps you busy and I would advise taking notes down when in meetings.

I would say that i was given a lot of responsibility in Canary Wharf when I was working in head office but wasn't given a great deal of responsibility when I was working in the branch. Expect this though as you really need to be qualified to be giving out any sort of advise to customers so the only real conversation a made with the customers was general chat and showing them where to go. Having said that there is some form of project work in branch that was interesting and useful for the managers to have.

I study Finance, so I believe that my time management skills will be greatly enhanced throughout the academic year. This is because you get used to working long days and I have found that I have been willing to work on my university work for longer periods of time throughout the day. I have found that I enjoy my weekends a lot more because of this. I also feel that my industry awareness will be improved throughout the year as I have learnt a lot more about current affairs and economic behaviour. This will help for my studies immensely.

The atmosphere in Canary Wharf was very busy and dynamic where a lot of people were walking around and rushing a lot of the time. The lifts in the mornings were jam packed and no one really seemed to talk that much to each other. Having said that the whole work hard play hard saying was correct as everyone meets up for lunch in an amazing dinning hall with a range of foods where you have around an hour to chat with other interns and some current graduates.

It was very well organised and I was happy after the induction process. The induction is somewhere called Horsely which is quite far away from London on the train so I didn't really know where I was going or how to get there. I turned up and it was essentially a ghost town with no one around which was a bit scary but other than that bad experience the internship was structured well with a lot of enjoyable work to get on with. The graduate recruiters and your manager will have a good relationship and keep in touch a fair amount.

I believe that they trained us pretty well. The branch placement more so than the head office placement. For me personally, the head office work was quite straight forward where imaginative and productive people with great ideas got rewarded very easily. I don't believe I great deal of training was needed in head office. Training on Lotus Notes took place in Horsely though which was good. Branch trained me a little better as i was sitting in on customer meetings and learning first hand what was going on.

They are very appealing with an attractive salary for graduates. I have been offered a graduate job after performing well on my internship which was very pleasing to me and evidence that hard work can pay off. The company is so big that they are constantly recruiting new people. Having been in the head office for one month, I saw around five new recruits on my floor alone since joining. (There are 42 floors in Canary Wharf) This should suggest that employment prospects are constantly appearing and being offered to well performing interns.

The social life was good as we were always going for drinks after work on Fridays. There is always something going on in London which is good and we spent some time in Southwark which is a great area for bars. During lunches we sat on the grass outside work and watched Wimbledon when it was on the large screen outside. There was a great social scene throughout my placement and great bars and clubbing to go to; you will never get bored of London.

I stayed in a few places with friends and in comparison to Northern Ireland rent London is extortionate. I couldn't quite get over the cost of living so be prepared to spend around £1,000 per month on accommodation around Canary Wharf. Some bars can be very dear as well however there are some hidden gems around Shoreditch that are averagely priced in comparison to the UK. I guess the good thing is that the wages are higher which allows you to afford the high rent and highly priced bars.

Really good nightlife around the area and really good company. The good thing is that everyone is on the same boat when it comes to being a summer intern and everyone is keen to make new friends and socialise as best they can do so the social scene is pretty fierce and there are plenty of bars and places to go around that area. Travelling into the City can be good also where there are a few massive clubs that are always really busy with great music.

There was quite a few opportunities as there was an HSBC fair that a lot of the interns were going to which raised money for Alzheimers. Having said that, being in the head office for 1 month was hard to get involved as it's not enough time to find out too much information, however, I am sure that there would be a lot more things that pop up from time to time. There were no opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work in my branch rotation.