Finding Corporate Banking technically difficult, anyone experienced this?

So as the title said, I am finding a hard time getting up to speed as a newly minted A1. 

For those who do not know ,corporate banking as a job isn't fully a finance job, although I do financial analysis pretty often, there is a large aspect of the job that involves getting used to internal software and best practices for certain situations. 

For what its worth, I am only a few weeks in but this is looking like a very steep learning curve.

Did any of you Corporate bankers feel this way or am I alone and this a sign that its not meant for me?

8 Comments
 

Corporate banking isn’t hard on the spectrum of things. Especially given the current market dealflow should be pretty slow.

I’d say your biggest skills to succeed in corp banking should be attention to detail and being able to sift through financial statements.

 
Most Helpful

Agree with the above on giving it 6 months before making an assessment. 

Also agree with the above that it isn't that hard if you are finance oriented. Understand accounting, basic arithmetic, and attention to detail/terminology and your comfort level should just be a matter of repetition. Be a sponge and ask everyone to explain everything if you don't understand it. You are right about best practices, but those can often be "how its always been done" as much as it is the "best" practice. Loan policy and risk appetite drive a LOT of decision-making and those are idiosyncratic to institutions and industries so just ask and keep good notes.

That said, CB is most certainly a finance job. It's not as modeling/quantitatively focused as other finance disciplines are, but you still work in finance. 

"And where we had thought to be alone we shall be with all the world"
 

Citi/JPM? I'm an A1 at one of those in the Corporate Bank and have read through past memos/annual reviews/training decks to learn. There are a lot of terms and acronyms to know, but anytime you come across them, just write them down on a sheet of paper so you can reference it in the future. 

There internal software is certainly confusing. But see if your group has a training deck that you can reference. My group did and when I need to use an internal system, I use this deck to help me figure how to pull whatever I'm looking for.

 

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