Corporate Banking
Corporate banks provide a wide range of financial services including lending, clearing, investing deposits and organising specialist products for clients with high turnovers (generally speaking, those in excess of £25 million sterling). Typical clients include financial institutions, major companies, and Irish commercial state companies. Most leading banks will have a corporate banking division.
What will I do?
Within the corporate bank, there are
three distinct areas of work. The first
is relationship building, in which you
interact with clients on a daily basis
and get to know their business. This
job requires banking staff to ensure
that the client’s business is running
efficiently by anticipating their needs.
The second role is working in
origination. This is the marketing
element of the bank, where research
is conducted in order to attract new
clients. Liaising with accountants and
other intermediaries is essential to
succeeding in this area.
The final role is in corporate and
structured finance. When a new
client has been found, corporate and
structured finance teams will work
together to ensure that a customised
package of services is created for the
client.
As in other areas of banking, it is
typical for you to join a graduate
training scheme within corporate
banking – often after completing an
internship. The graduate training
scheme will give you a taste of bank
life and experience of each sector.
There will be a lot of information and
jargon to take on board in a short
space of time so ensure you ask
questions if you need to.
In the graduate training scheme you
will quickly be given a great deal of
responsibility. This will include
nurturing successful relationships
with existing clients and developing
these over time, as well as building
new contacts. It’s not unusual to find
that you have client contact from an
early stage and that your clients are
senior figures in their industry.
Qualifications
Applications are usually accepted
from graduates with a 2.1 degree or
higher in any discipline. Although
formal training is given when you
begin, an aptitude for analysing
numbers is beneficial. You will also
need to be an enthusiastic, fast
learner with good interpersonal and
communication skills to deal
effectively with clients. Developing
the skills to network successfully with
senior colleagues, clients and other
graduates will help you to do well in
this sector.
An international service
To keep in line with the trend towards
globalisation, some leading players
within the corporate banking sector
are increasingly looking to provide an
international service to their clients.
Don’t be surprised, therefore, if you
liaise internally with teams in
international offices.
