Finding internships on a gap year?

Hey everyone, so I'm currently in my third year of uni, due to graduate at the end of fourth year, so 2023. I'm quite young and don't feel completely prepared to finish uni or to start working full-time, so I'd like to take a gap year. I also missed out on a lot of London IB recruiting this year for summer analyst positions due to illness, so I would hopefully look to get an IB SA internship for summer 2023. I would like to get helpful experience with some type of internship(s) for the gap year though (and I can't afford to do it unpaid), but not sure how realistic/possible this is?

I'm looking at mainly London, Germany, open to most European countries essentially, I speak German and a few other languages but not French. My current thoughts are off-cycle internships, some traineeships in financial institutions potentially, cold-emailing/reaching out to people at PE, AM, VC firms and maybe hedge funds. Ideal would be a placement program but my uni doesn't offer that and I don't think they get advertised by themselves.

Someone else suggested to me to apply for financial/credit/data analyst entry-level positions (as if I wanted several years' employment without any degree), but I'm not sure how helpful that is for banking or whether it's a bit weird?

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience with this? Is it an issue applying for 2023 summers if I am graduating 2024 but technically not "fully" enrolled during 2022/23? Would really appreciate any advice, thanks in advance!