1. 2. Banks: Guide to Structure
No two banks org charts will be the same, but they will share common themes around product and client types. Banks will individually customise their resources to target areas and maximise profit.
Investment Bank
Markets/Securities: Provide access to the financial markets for professional institutional Investors e.g. Asset Managers, Corporates, Governments and sometimes large private clients. This area will deal with all parts, and derivatives of, the corporate and government capital structure and all aspects within it i.e. from secondary trading of securities, financing of portfolios to issuing private debt. It will likely also include all aspects of FX and commodities.
Within this division there will likely be Equities, deals with all aspects (issuance, trading, financing and derivatives) of corporate equity. Credit, deals with all aspects of debt issued by corporates (and maybe sudo-government entities). Emerging Markets (EM), it will usually deal with all aspects of corporate and government debt, FX and equity for non-developed countries. The lines between EM and credit/FX can be quite blurred and who deals with what is very bank dependent. Sometimes, Soft (local currency) and Hard ($ denominated) products are split into different areas. Rates, deals with all aspects of Government Debt for developed countries. FX, deals all aspects of Currency Exchange. Commodities, deals with all aspects of commodities, orange juice to shipping!
There are also many other areas which maybe integrated into the groups above or have their own reporting line, such as:
Financing areas, Repo (repurchase agreement, think short term loan backed by a security) or Equity Lending.
Structuring, this can very broad role but will usually involves solving a specific problem and transferring risk and/or cash flows into a different form using various different aspects of the banks groups
Exotics, this group deal with any instrument where the payment, coupon or rate isn’t trivial to model.
Global Bank
Investment Bank
Markets/Securities
Investment Banking
Retail Bank
Personal Banking
Private Banking
Asset Management
Private Clients
Institutional Clients
Corporate/Commercial Bank
Treasury Services
Corporate Centre
Legal
Treasury
IT Infrastructure
HR/Recruiting

2. 2. Banks: Guide to Structure
Investment Banking: Advise corporates, governments and large institutions on any aspect of finance and packages together solutions to fix problems and meet clients long-term aims. Mergers & Acquisitions teams will advise a companies within a sector on valuations, negotiations and support and transactions they do. Industry coverage teams will provide comprehensive sectorial advice and be clients points of contact for the whole IB team. There are also ECM (Equity Capital Markets) who plan IPO’s and help manage corporates equity issuance. DCM (Debt Capital Market) advise corporates and governments on debt issuance plans, the structure and documentation required to issue to the public or private markets. Leveraged Finance will help riskier companies gain access to different types of high-yield bonds and loans.
Retail Bank
Personal Banking: This is the who the majority of people bank with and use facilities such as overdrafts, mortgages, current accounts and credit cards.
Private Banking: This is specialised version of Personal/Retail banking aimed at high net worth individual who have more unique requirements and need a broader range of services
Asset Management:
Some banks have an asset management division. They will offer products to individuals and/or other institutions that aim to make the assets grown over time e.g. an ISA fund in the UK. Within the division there could be different sections broken down by the type of investment they offer and/or the client they serve. An example of this might be all investment grade bond funds will be managed by one group and Tech equity funds by another. It is quite common for each fund offered by an Asset Manager to have multiple portfolio managers who specialise in individual products (or if it is a very specific fund to just have P.M.). Also, within each group there may be various functions from trading to research.
In some banks there is also an advisor function were they advise other asset managers, this usually works closely with investment banking.
Global Bank
Investment Bank
Markets/Securities
Investment Banking
Retail Bank
Personal Banking
Private Banking
Asset Management
Private Clients
Institutional Clients
Corporate/Commercial Bank
Treasury Services
Corporate Centre
Legal
Treasury
IT Infrastructure
HR/Recruiting

3. 2. Banks: Guide to Structure
Corporate and Commercial Bank: This division will deal with large corporate clients who require largescale banking activities that extend beyond normal business banking. The activities might include, Treasury services (liquidity/cash management, Resilience and managing a corporates payables), Credit and Financing (e.g. Equipment financing), handling a large companies receivables and dealing with making and receiving payments from all over the globe.
Treasury Services: This group help large companies and institutions manage their own cash, liabilities, working capital and plan for the future. This group is often split amongst other areas where there is a close point of contact for the client.
Corporate Centre
Treasury: Manages the bank’s own liabilities and financing. Sometimes this group is split amongst other divisions. There is sometime a CIO office which will manage the bank’s excess cash and there will likely be a capital group that handles the banks regulatory capital.
Legal: Give internal legal advice as and when needed. There will be business specialist and more general lawyers, in a lot of areas there will also be lawyers working directly on the desks as in most of finance there is significant legal work involved.
HR/Recruiting: It is very likely that someone from Recruiting will be running your placement and they will be a great source of information from what is happening on the placement and/or what is expected of you
Global Bank
Investment Bank
Markets/Securities
Investment Banking
Retail Bank
Personal Banking
Private Banking
Asset Management
Private Clients
Institutional Clients
Corporate/Commercial Bank
Treasury Services
Corporate Centre
Legal
Treasury
IT Infrastructure
HR/Recruiting

4. Banks: Roles Research Sales Trading Syndicate DCM/ECM Clients
Publish detailed analysis of different areas of the financial markets and the factors that can effect them. Researchers specialise in a particular area which is usually product and sector specific. i.e. Equities of all the Media companies in Europe.
Communicate research and discuss daily with Clients, Traders, Sales and Syndicate
Research
Maintain a constant relationship with clients and be the first point of contact if necessary. Consolidate the vast array of information and filter it for specific clients. Provide constant feedback about clients intentions to trading, syndicate and other banking area. Pitch ideas & execute trades with trading.
Sales
Price, execute and manage the risks associated with client trades. Have a deep understanding of the market you are active in and underlying assets you trade. Generate trade ideas to turn risk around and profit from potential clients. Communicate constantly with sales, research, syndicate and clients.
Trading
Be the bridge between banking and markets. Provide pricing to companies and bankers. Give regular updates to companies and take feedback about what is and isn’t possible from sales and clients. Liaise with other banks syndicate departments when issuing and execute and trade a new issue.
Syndicate
Pitch to companies and come up with innovative ways to meet their long-term debt and equity liability aims. Look for ways to optimise existing companies issuance strategies and then create the deal and all it’s documentation and requirements. Work with sales and syndicate to pitch the deal.
DCM/ECM
There are so many different roles across different divisions that it is impossible to cover them all here. Below are a few that you may of heard of and will come into contact with across the investment bank within various different products groups.
The skills needed across all of them are very similar and all will spend significant amount of time communicating with clients. It isn’t uncommon for successful bankers to start in one area and then more to another.
There are many other roles that work with the teams that make up the roles opposite e.g. lawyers, IT product specialists, internal “desk” research analysts, product structures.
Good leaders will have very similar skills and traits across products and roles.
Clients