<p>Hi all, I'm a junior at Brown interested in banking but I don't have any directly related experience yet. So this summer is my crucial internship summer I suppose, and I'm applying to the typical BB internships, but I'm also looking at other things in the event that I don't get any BB ones. My question is, how would an internship at the FDIC look? I can't say now what the exact responsibilities would be, and I'm not exactly sure what the FDIC even does besides insure commercial banks...but do you think / know if there are any roles that would be similar to an investment banking internship?</p>
<p>Since many of the major investment banks are part of bank holding companies which also have a commercial bank, I think such experience would be incredibly useful and attractive to recruiters.</p>
<p>I guess I’m just wondering more would there be duties comparable to those people at ib internships would be doing? If I worked at the FDIC is it pretty much assured that I’d be working with things related only to commercial banks (and then only get experience that would translate to working with commercial arms of banks)?</p>
<p>I myself am not sure yet. It is possible I might be able to ask for consideration in a specific department or something, which is another reason I’m interested in figuring out which is the most relevant / if there is a very relevant position.</p>
<p>If you’re going for the Corporate Employee Program as a bank/financial institution examiner, that’s still a great internship. I’m actually pretty familiar with bank supervision roles at agencies like the Federal Reserve Banks, FDIC, and U.S. Treasury OCC. It’s closer to audit than banking, and you’ll see some CPAs there because the skillset is similar to an auditor’s. However, there are a lot more financial concepts involved, such as credit/liquidity risk assessment and checking for capital adequacy at banks. So bank examination work isn’t exactly verifying financial reporting but rather analyzing the info for “safety and soundness.”</p>
<p>At the FDIC, you’ll be covering state-chartered banks that are NOT members of the Federal Reserve System. (The Federal Reserve Banks are slightly different because you’ll be covering state-chartered banks that ARE, obviously, members of the Federal Reserve System. Then you have the Treasury OCC, which covers NATIONALLY-chartered banks. The “N.A.” after the bank’s formal name designates a national charter.) You’ll most likely be examining smaller commercial banks in the region and community banks. If you’re up for the travel, which you will do a lot, you will learn a lot from this role. Not a bad internship or first job.</p>
<p>For banking, they’ll still notice the FDIC name, which is better than a lot of internships. I would say it’s a step above Big Four audit if you want to break into finance. You’re just going to have to tell a good story about why you want to do IB during FT recruiting. If they ask about your interests, you can say you’re interested in the FIG group.</p>
<p>(Just to clarify, I don’t work in this field, but I learned a lot during the recruiting process when I was in school. I was interested in bank examining for a time.)</p>
<p>If you’re not going for this role, then you can disregard most of what I said above ;)</p>