DOCUMENTARY
Kamrul and I went to HSBC. On the first day, the HSBC team received us very well and we met Mellisa who is the coordination manager of many countries in Europe.
She is the business implementation manager for various projects and she introduced us to her colleagues: Pavel Du, Muge, Stéphanie and Jean-François Phan Van Phi. Pavel and Muge explained to us that they were the business implementation managers for a tax law programme called FATCA.
FATCA is a regulation set to help stop tax evasion in the United States. Stéphanie told us that she was the head of business implementation for Europe region. And lastly Jean-François Phan Van Phi is the leader of receivables Finance for continental Europe.
The working atmosphere was very pleasant.
On the second day we learnt about factoring and we met Jean-François Phan Van Phi again who explained it to us. We also met Etienne who taught us about the credit rating system of HSBC's clients. The clients are given a credit rating between one and ten. For example one cannot borrow any amount of money if one is given a low credit rating.
We also met Olivier who is the head of client management and Constance who is the international development manager.
I learnt a lot of things in this company, like the fact that they divide their work between them to make it easier.
On the last day we sat in on a conference call with Jean-François Phan Van Phi with different countries like India, Spain and England. Everybody spoke English. Jean-François Phan Van Phi give me many advice like the fact that English is really important in the big companies.
Then finally we had a meeting with Mathias who is the sales manager of HSBC.
That was a really enriching experience.
Céline Zhang, 1ère Scientifique
It was my first professional experience in an international company with my British partner. His name is Jonathan da Silva and he comes from a Portuguese background.
Our company is HSBC. HSBC is an international bank and its financial headquarters is in Hong-Kong. My mentor was called Grégoire Lecourt.
We worked in an immense building nicknamed Coeur Défense, more precisely in the Tower A on the eighteenth floor.
Our sector was the purchasing department for HSBC. On Tuesday morning, Grégoire introduced us to the company and told us what his role was in HSBC. During the lunch hour, Grégoire took us on a walk to see La Défense. We had the opportunity to take some pictures.
After that Jonathan and I researched two software packages and some hardware. I summarised their functions.
On Wednesday and Thursday, we visited all partners of our department. All partners explained their jobs and their functions, in English for Jonathan and French for me. l learnt that there are various roles in the head office of a bank. For example, Stéfane takes care of the risks and Laurent takes care of everything related to communication. After we were explained the jobs in the purchases department, my mentor left us a little time to write our internship report.
To conclude, I have learnt many things that I did not expect, even if it was really short. It was a good experience and I thank my mentors and all the staff who welcomed us at HSBC.
Zakaria OUARDI, 1ère Scientifique.