Vishal - Corporate

Hi,

The week has been busy as usual. As I have had an increasing amount of items on my task list, my line manager has given me a bit of a breather by asking the directors to divert tasks to the other analysts within the team. This in theory should help me to reduce my workload.

I spent a large portion of the week conducting a review on a connection which has recently come into the Leveraged Finance Portfolio. The department has devised checklists which provides reminders to; Verify all due diligence (i.e. financial and legal), Communicate the arrival of the customer to all factions of the bank (i.e. Business Visa, Asset Finance etc), Update all bank systems, ensure all fee's are being taken correctly etc. Though time consuming, this is a highly important task and provides me with a great development opportunity. As a result of this activity I have become more familiar with legal documentation, the banks systems and banking processes. Furthermore, I have learnt about the services provided to customers via other departments in Corporate and the wider HBOS group.

On Friday I had a review of my placement progress with my line manager. During the start of the placement I was daunted by the list of development activities which were presented to me for completion. I am now much more relaxed as things have come together over the last 3 months. Without me realising, I have been fulfilling my learning objectives. During the meeting my line manager also informed me that I will be responsible for introducing the new graduate (my replacement) to working within the Leveraged Finance Team. Given the nature of the role, I feel the new graduate may find aspects of this placement challenging as he will be on his first placement. However, I feel the placement will set a very strong foundation for future placements and an eventual career path.

In other news, I went flat hunting in Edinburgh over the weekend in preparation for my next placement in Integrated Finance. It was disappointing to say the least. I booked my flight last week only to then discover that most letting agents don’t hold viewing's over the weekend. In the end I managed to arrange a few viewings but all the places I saw were very grotty and unjustifiably expensive. So the search continues, I feel I will be making the most of my relocation allowance and hope to go up again during a week day.