Capital Markets Summer Intern Review

Generally enjoyed my internship at RBS. I was in Capital Markets and rotated in 2 groups within the department. Felt good to be close to the markets, to feel as if you are "part of the game" even though your responsibilities as an intern are quite limited. People are generally nice, it is easy to have access to senior management (VPs, Directors, MDs) and ask questions, probably more than in other banks.

Really varies from team to team. On my first rotation I would say most people did not seem to care about me a lot, as I was in a team that wasn't that busy. However in my second rotation it was totally different, I was in a busy team and I felt like I really was part of the team and that the work I did was useful and very much appreciated. Got many emails telling me that I helped the team a lot with my work, which was very much appreciated.

Again varies from team to team, but I would say generally supervisors had time to explain work in a detailed enough way and also had time to answer any questions you might have on most subjects. Really open door mentality, i.e. rarely will someone not be happy to answer your questions.

On my first rotation I was in a team where not much was going on since it was the summer lull, so I would say it was hard to get actual work to do, even though I went around and bothered most team members for work. A day would be normally 7:45 to 19:30-20:00. In my second rotation, however, the team was really busy, and I was busy pretty much all day. A normal workday would be 8:00 to 23:00, but it was still great to be involved and do actual work.

I would say most of the stuff I would do would be pretty basic, as it is expected in an internship. Typical responsibilities would be stuff like updating league tables, writing weekly market commentaries, putting slides together, finding financial data in ARs and inputting them in spreadsheets/slides.

Overall very good, although I was not doing things where I really got to apply financial knowledge/ analyse data, the learning by listening/watching other people work was great. A key takeaway would be that I learned a lot about the general bank/issuer/investor relationship, and how an investment bank functions in real life.

Generally good, varies a lot, some people might not say hi and talk to anyone during the day, whereas others will constantly talk/make jokes.

It was well organized. Many activities, feedback after each rotation, assigned a buddy and a line manager to who you can actually reach out to.

Felt like RBS invested a lot into their interns. We really get the feeling that we are important to the company, that they want to "impress" us, which is great.

Generally very good, retention rate is historically higher than other banks. Feels as if the firm wants to grow with young people they develop.

In "Markets" (I.e. Sales & Trading) it seems as if there was a lot of going out/activities outside work. Not really the case in Capital Markets, however. Most people are of the more reserved type and you need to hang out with the markets people to do social stuff outside work.

Average London fares. living very expensive, anywhere between £150 to £200 per week. Travelling also. Socialising can be handled at a reasonable price if you know where to hang out.

Pretty good, many bars around since we work in the City and thus very close to Shoreditch and other cool areas. Definitely better than Canary Wharf.

Hard to do when you work long hours weekdays and do not know much people in London as you are only there for a few weeks.