Deployment Chronicles~Risk Administration (Middle Market)

Up i go to the third floor again. And for another first time, I’m confined in a room, specifically for the middle market risk unit, one sort of an autonomous unit under the RAD. Why I say autonomous, is because all the unit here, like CMU and OMU, aren’t really related to each other asides the fact that they both control risks. Hence, its sort of odd when they all seldom interact with each other as their work requires little so.

As it says market, its somehow of a policeman towards what the treasury does. So, its kinda more close of a relationship to the dealing room compared to the others. The benefit? Often gettin free meals and snack when any of the dealers are having an occasion. Sort of inviting some jealousy from the other units :D.

The first days here, were not only on dealing with learning the ins and outs of the place, it was more on swifting my mindset. Having been six month in the ops departments, my mindset was kinda set at having to help out others with their work ASAP. And since it was more practical and physical, it didn’t take long for us to do so. But in the middle office, we had to have a better grip of the work, the products, and the workflow. So we couldn’t just rashly go and help others. We had to move at a sure but steady pace.

So for the first weeks, I was almost left with nothing real to do asides attaching myself to one of the staffs, learning, asking and taking notes on what they were doing. Asides so, I was also left learning the treasury products, which to be honest, have some twist in them. This hindered us from understanding them quickly. It wasn’t until the second month there that I finally had the chance to do some real work, still under the supervision of a senior staff.

It was around March or so, that i finally had the chance to do the work with almost no direct supervising. As time moved on, I was given the chance to learn other duties. On several occasions, I was also given the chance to contact other staff to discuss certain aspects of work. All these slowly build up my knowledge and guts in work interaction.

But what excites me in this unit, is the fact that you get the chance to know things of the front offices work, without having the need to handle it first time. It’s useful as a stepping stone and as a learning process, since you mostly have the time to get use of things by yourself. This is the case for most middle office deployments like KYC/AML, RMD and PIP.

One another side, the time here in the MMU, i gained a lot of weight, all to the likings of the staffs there who really like to snack and dine out. I guess that’s what happens when most of the staffs are women -_________-;. Another thing is that I managed to travel in a consecutive 4 months, to Singapore, Jogja (2x), and Malang. But
I guess this was due to to piling boredom of working in middle office. Its the routine that often kills.

Anyway, that’s almost all on my time there. New place new things, I guess that what I’m gonna face when entering my new office. See ya next time ;-).