News
Paul Brown
07.08.2017
Looking back over the past year, I can’t believe how far I’ve come. All the experiences have pushed me to be a more confident and resilient person. As I now prepare for a new adventure in Australia I hope I will continue to learn and grow.
I started my placement with HSBC in the Equities Post Trade Production Support team in Hong Kong in April 2016. I’ve had previous experience in application support so tasks such as resolving issues and raising incident tickets were not new to me. However, entering the trading world was completely different to my previous role in credit risk support in London. There was a lot more pressure as most issues required a quick response time and resolution where possible to avoid huge repercussions. Fortunately, I had a great mentor on my team who guided me through the whole way and taught me about trading processes within the bank, HSBC’s middle office IT infrastructure and the way major IT issues were dealt with.
Outside of work I was able to explore all that Asia had to offer in terms of learning about the culture, meeting new people, getting involved in social activities and eating local delicacies. My favourite thing about Hong Kong is the junk boats – these are boats that take you out to sea, around the islands and stop so you can jump in and have a swim whilst enjoying food and drinks. Occasionally they include a speedboat so you can have a go at wakeboarding and take a ride on a banana boat. This is one of the most exhilarating things I’ve done in such a beautiful environment. I loved it so much that I organised a junk for my birthday!
My time in Hong Kong had definitely been a fun and educational opportunity, but over time I realised I wanted to take a slightly different direction with my career. I felt my skills were best suited towards a business analyst (BA) role as I am good at interacting with people across various areas and I have a good understanding of the way IT systems work within a business. I would like to use my technical knowledge in order to assist the business with developing and implementing functional solutions and make strategic decisions. This led me to having a conversation with one of the account managers about possible BA roles in Australia.
I had heard that FDM was expanding out to the land of Aussies which definitely sparked my interest because I enjoy living and working abroad. As much as I love Hong Kong, the possibility of a BA role in another country that I’ve never been to excited me I managed to successfully secure a BA placement with ANZ in the Transaction Banking department in Melbourne. I couldn’t be more thrilled!