Financial Analyst, Global Commodities GCIP

Alice's Day in the Life: Financial Analyst

Explain your role

My main responsibility is publishing the profit or loss or 'PnL', that the trading desk has made. We conduct this on a T+1 basis, meaning that we report on the previous day's trading. If there are any discrepancies between the numbers we report and what trading believe they have made, we discuss with the front office (trading) and/ or technology.

What does a typical day look like in your role?

My day is usually made up of regular daily processes. However, when booking issues or fluctuations in the market occur, some require further investigation than others. This is due to different products being traded on each day which affect your daily tasks.

When BAU (business as usual) is straight forward and completed quickly, we then have time to look at process improvement projects.

How did you find the work when you first started in your role?

As part of the FMAP rotation you are given 2 1 year placements, with roles specifically designed for recent graduates. Because of this the transition into work was quite easy as the role was based around being an entry role with time to learn about what the team and company do.

Because of my graduate experience, I transitioned into my full-time role quite easily as I had plenty of support and training from my team to really learn and understand about my role and responsibilities.

How did you get into this role?

I studied Economics at Lancaster University and then did a placement year whilst at university in the logistics industry. I decided my interests weren’t aligned to logistics, so I looked into the banking and finance industry instead.

Can you tell us about a project you’ve really enjoyed in your role?

Myself and other graduates were given the task to improve the work life of as many finance colleagues as we could. As we were recent hires, we decided to improve the onboarding process and made changes to how new joiners raised access to applications they needed for their roles. This improvement ‘bundled’ applications together instead of asking new joiners to create multiple access requests. Because we use a lot of software in the bank, this was a big time-saving exercise. It also introduced us to a lot of colleagues across our finance floor that we wouldn’t usually talk to and created a lot of new connections.

Is there any more information about your role and what you do that you’d like to share?

Working for such a large organisation gives you the opportunity to get involved in areas outside of your daily role and responsibilities. For example, I am on the finance social committee and am responsible for spending the budget on annual events like the Chester races and our winter gathering. Organising these events outside of work provides a lot of enjoyment as well as the chance to meet more people outside of my direct team.