Prudential Risk Management Internship

During my 10-week internship at MUFG, I completed two rotations. My primary rotation was with Prudential Risk Management (PRM) and my secondary placement was with the Rates Trading Group (RTG).

The learning curve for both rotations was exponential – I came into the internship with only a vague knowledge of investment banking. Coincidently the first question I was asked when I sat on my secondary rotation was “what is an investment bank and what exactly do we do?” The question seems pretty obvious, but explaining it was a different story. The lesson I learnt from that experience was before getting into the details, understand the basics.

To get the most out of the internship, I had a specific plan that I devised beforehand. The gate pass works for 10 weeks, that is 50 working days, hence I should at least learn 50 different aspects about the financial sector and, more specifically, how MUFG contribute, within this time.

In terms of day-to-day activities, my work differed between the two divisions. With PRM I was mainly reading Basel papers and implementing the new changes into the current methods used, with the aim of calculating capital requirements for counterparty credit risk. It was imperative I understood the different departments within risk. These include, credit risk, market risk and operational risk. My secondary rotation with RTG was more of a learning placement and gave me huge exposure into how MUFG directly interact with clients and how they price their trades. During this rotation I was given the responsibility of P&L for the traders. Rather than just writing down what figures I was told, I would ask why there was such a swing in the P&L and what exactly caused the deviance. Hence I would be able to follow the markets and see how adverse movements affected each trader.

The 10-week internship was exceptional. Apart from the actual rotations, we had speakers from across the business give us an insight into their departments, therefore broadening our exposure. There were many social events for the interns to network and get to know each other as well as graduates who have joined the firm. The internship has definitely met and gone beyond my expectations. We even had a brunch with the CEO, which was the icing on the cake for me.

At the end of the internship I was lucky enough to be offered a position on the Analyst programme and I now work as an Analyst within our Rates Sales & Trading Team. I would strongly recommend this internship to you, if you are willing to be proactive, willing to treat every day as an opportunity and are willing to be a sponge for information.