Internship at RBB, Treasury Department

Profile:

Saujan Gyawali, an MBA Candidate at Apex College. A Learner who is determined, aims to add value to work, and has interests in Innovation, Economics outlook, Finance and Data.

A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at. -Bruce Lee

It was last year in the mid November when I was preparing myself for the internship program. I was in great dilemma to choose organizations; my priorities were on the profiles, role, work culture they offer. As regular Corporate Talk Series in my College, Uniliver Nepal was one of the attendees who encourage graduate students to apply for internship program. I quickly scanned through details like eligibility, duration, company profile and on. So, I applied too. I went through all the formalities process; rounds of interview and shockingly they offered me internship at marketing. It was an absolute not my interest area, I left that offer. Because, I always wanted to uproot in the field of Finance. And, finally one organization caught my eyes. It was Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB).

Selection Process and Preparation Strategy

Do your duty and leave the rest to the gods. - Pierre Corneille

After I applied for RBB, they offered me internship program at very sensitive department i.e. Treasury Department at Head Office. My interest and importance exactly matched here. Treasury department of a Commercial Bank is responsible for balancing and managing the daily cash flow and liquidity of funds within the bank. It also handles the bank's investments in securities, foreign exchange and cash instruments. Luckily, all my learning, preparation is likely to applied here. I was saturated with happiness.

Internship Days

On the first Day, I along with my fellow classmates reported to the HR Department and assigned to the respective department based on the application. As I allocated to the Treasury Department, Department Chief briefed about the department’s functions and their expectations of me. Since I wanted to work on the fund management, Intra-Bank activities and understanding the SWIFT functions in the Bank. I was allocated to the Remittance Section. I then interacted with my mentor who was the Assistant Manager of Remittance Section. After discussion with my mentor, he taught me overall process to settle down the remittance in RBB account that sent through SWIFT channel from all over the world. He created my mirror account in Pumori Plus where I can access in assigned tasks. I spent my initial two weeks to understand all the working activities and terminologies, for which I took help from my mentor, referred to bank’s documents, annual reports of RBB, interacted among the employees in that department. Once I was updated with basic, I was assigned project by Deputy Chief to prepare report for NRB (Nepal Rastra Bank) the remittance inflow in RBB from year 2010 to 2019. For this I used several internal sources, data, made blueprint and kept working towards it. Interesting thing I liked was all employees were so humble, down to earth, encourage me in many ways.

For this report, I used all the internal segregation remittance inflow Data of USD, Pound sterling, Euro, INR and other currencies in ten years of time. Prepared report showing various graphs, charts and excel to clear in remittance circulation.

Last two weeks of my internship, I was positioned on the Treasury Back office; back office function is responsible for settlement, confirmation and accounting. Treasury Operations is generally used to refer to the treasury back office. I was under the Back-Office Manager, who taught me lot of process of operation of Back Office, Liquidity management, how commercial banks bids for Treasury Bill, Reverse Repo and so on. The financial statement/reports which became my bible. Where I can spend hour and hour of time analyzing it, understanding it and able to interpret easily. Going into the deep in the subject matter was always my notch of priority. For this I interact mostly with Chartered Accountants CA to understand on Statement of Financial Position, Income Statement, Consolidated Financial Statements etc. I was able to applied all the classroom learning activities in professional ways. This was the best moment of learning I’d crafted.

Learnings from the Internship

The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice. -Brian Herbert

The capacity to learn is a gift.

In life as human beings, we all receive this gift. Research on learning mindsets tells us that people who tend to see their ability as something pre-determined and pre-set are more likely to develop a lifelong love of learning. During my internship period, I was so opened to learn the process and flows. I interact as much as I can on the subject matter, that really helps me to understand complex subject in deeper and interesting way.

The ability to learn is a skill.

If you always possess positive attitude with growth mindset then interpretations of what a learning skillset can incorporate. I applied learning attituded which sharpen my skills during internship period. Using complex software, working advance level of excel are the best part where I bounced my skills in next level. In today’s world, solving complex problems in simplicity is the tough job so for this one needs to be very proactive with growth mindset.

The willingness to learn is a choice.

As we all have beautiful gift; capacity to learn. If we gradually developed such capacity our willingness will be more distinct and we will be much motivated. For me same things happen, I always tried to learn as best I can so, at the time of internship I was so motivated to perform tasks and that has no limit. That, definitely helps me while I got opportunity to work in the Treasury Back Office from Remittance section. If we are motivated in positive attitude, it will automatically work as the fuel for the skills and accelerate learning potential. Always remember, willingness powers mindset and skillset. Mindset and skillset power willingness.

I believe that if we are fully dedicated towards our goal, career and have hunger of learning we can definitely set sky’s the limit.