Transaction Assurance Summer Analyst Review

The tasks I did were pretty repetitive. I also missed 3 weeks due to competitions I had already planned so I probably got a lot less out of it than others.

Every bank recruitment drive I have ever attended love to focus on one thing, the people. Every bank goes on and on how the people make the bank. Of course I initially thought this was utter nonsense but probably the best thing about RBS is the culture. Everyone is uber friendly and I got along very well with 99% of the people, of course there are some you have differences with but that is simply expected. I think its a known fact that as an intern, the bank pays you so much more than they really should so it can be difficult to try and show off your value.

Rather than a MD managing me I was managed by a Graduate. This had pros and cons. It was good in the sense that you could relate to him a lot better as he was around my age. It was a drawback though because it was harder to network and gain a real insight into the bank.

It was quite busy, often had to stay in past 6 to finish up some work but being an Ops intern, your hours and pretty standard and work load fairly balanced compared to other areas of the bank.

So by the end of the internship, I was running all the daily tasks and maintaining the BAU systems. I actually began teaching other full time employees how to do the tasks so I became quite specialized. They throw some responsibility on you from day 1 which can be nerve racking but good. you must bear in mind though that being an intern, you cant be expected to run everything as you are a liability, especially with client exposure. A bank like RBS can't afford to have any more mess ups.

I worked a lot with Excel. Trust me, you know nothing about Excel. You may think you know lots about Excel but you really know nothing. Excel is like a wolf. Its not a dog. Although you think you can tame the wolf and teach it tricks, at the end of the day, its still a wild animal. There is so much to it that you have no idea about. I also learnt a fair bit about banking which is good for future interviews and general knowdledge in the industry.

Everyone was very relaxed and chilled, the majority of people would sometimes stop working and just talk for a few minutes about random topics.

RBS HR did a very good job mixing in networking events and random activites throughout the internship.

Money wise, they invested a lot more than they got out.

I heard 70% of interns get offers to join the grad scheme.

Many of the other interns were like minded and I made some very close friends I otherwise wouldn't have.

London is expensive.

I worked at Bankside but it was a short tube to liverpool street where all the bars are.

I was allowed to go on a 2 week trip interrupting my internship after winning a big competition.