Operational investment banker : Job description

The operations division of an investment bank is often described as the 'engine room' of the organisation.

Operations (also known as 'back office', and sometimes ‘middle office’) provide support to the client facing departments, such as trading, corporate finance, and corporate banking (which are sometimes known as the ‘front office’).

The front office generates business for the bank, and operations ensure that that the business is administered in an efficient, controlled, risk-free and timely manner. They ensure that products, services and money change hands how they are supposed to.

The exact definition of operations is sometimes extended to business services functions such as human resources, IT and public relations.

Operations professionals run and manage day-to-day processes and develop new systems in order to maximise efficiency and profitability for the bank. They deal with incoming queries from their internal clients, resolve incorrect payments and ensure that client details are correct for the payment of funds.

Typical work activities

Operations covers a wide range of activities. Following the buying and selling of financial products and services by the bank, operations staff make sure that each transaction is:

• cleared (funds and financial products moving between buyer and seller);
• settled (confirmation of ownership) smoothly and accurately;
• reconciled (accurately documented and reported).

The structure of departments varies from bank to bank, but the tasks of operations practitioners typically involve:

• running processes to clear and settle transactions;
• reconciling systems by checking that the data flows from the revenue-generating front office to the operations systems (operations control);
• monitoring the activity and reports of daily transactions;
• investigating breaks in the cash account within an investment bank;
• liaising with clients regarding transaction settlements, as and when required;
• troubleshooting systems problems;

Managers of operations teams will:

• act as an interface with other divisions of the bank, e.g. liaising with traders, ensuring all issues are resolved in an extremely timely and efficient manner;
• organise team meetings, managing team members, responsibility for individual and team appraisals;
• recruit, train, coach and manage team members;
• ensure that client protection rules are adhered to;
• ensure that processes are constantly incrementally improving, and participate in step-change improvement projects;
• managing projects: analysing a system, identifying and specifying developments and improvements and coordinating the testing and implementation of new systems.