Graduate FRESH IT Analyst 2022

BNP Paribas is a leading bank in Europe with an international reach. It operates in 68 countries and has more than 193,000 employees, including nearly 148,000 in Europe. The Group has key positions in its three main activities: Domestic Markets and International Financial Services (whose retail-banking networks and financial services are covered by Retail Banking & Services) and Corporate & Institutional Banking, which serves two client franchises: corporate clients and institutional investors. The Group helps all its clients (individuals, community associations, entrepreneurs, SMEs, corporates and institutional clients) to realise their projects through solutions spanning financing, investment, savings and protection insurance.

In Europe, the Group has four domestic markets (Belgium, France, Italy and Luxembourg) and BNP Paribas Personal Finance is the European leader in consumer lending. BNP Paribas is rolling out its integrated retail-banking model in Mediterranean countries, in Turkey, in Eastern Europe and a large network in the western part of the United States. In its Corporate & Institutional Banking and International Financial Services activities, BNP Paribas also enjoys top positions in Europe, a strong presence in the Americas as well as a solid and fast-growing business in Asia-Pacific.

As one of the world’s pre-eminent banking groups – and the first ever French bank to set down roots in the UK in 1867 – the breadth and depth of our presence across the country means BNP Paribas is able provide UK companies and investors access to a full global suite of products and solutions in Europe and worldwide. This, combined with our long-term commitment to the UK, is what truly distinguishes BNP Paribas from other international banks operating in the country.

Technology

Technology touches every part of BNP Paribas and underpins every deal we make. Our Technology teams are responsible for analysing, developing, implementing, operating and maintaining cutting-edge applications used across the business. Their key objective is to apply expertise in technology to business problems and deliver high-quality, practical solutions.

That could mean developing new applications for our trading floors, supporting our traders and sales operations teams with their IT platform, setting up the infrastructure for a new office, or working with colleagues in other functions to develop tools to enhance our e-commerce, risk measurement, pricing and trade processing applications.

Understanding complex technology is one aspect, but a firm grasp of business issues is also essential. You could be working closely with our trading floor to analyse and develop the software that enables them to make the split second decisions that our business is founded on, or using your creativity and initiative to enhance or support our state-of-the-art systems and databases. Whatever the task, our technologists work in a fast-moving environment where solutions move from concept to implementation in weeks and months rather than years.

FRESH Department

FRESH is a unique set-up created in 2020, bringing together a community of 1300 global experts from Finance, Risk and IT backgrounds. FRESH manages more than 130 applications used daily by Finance and Risk business professionals of the BNP Paribas Group. We strive to develop user-friendly, secure and efficient solutions for data driven activities. FRESH aims at accelerating delivery, on the strength of a lively and passionate community boosted by innovation, in terms of technology, methodology, organisation and management.

In the UK, we have a dynamic mix of project managers, business analysts and software developers, working closely with our extended team in India, to deliver systems for Finance departments globally.

We are currently looking for a high calibre graduate to join our business focused IT team in London.

Purpose & Scope of role

Two teams in FRESH UK are developing and enhancing new tools for Finance teams globally, related to management controls and invoicing. Using latest technologies to handle large data volumes efficiently, both are now selected as global tools. This has triggered an expansion in analysis of user requirements in all locations, together with increased data volumes and system performance demands. This is an exciting time for these dynamic teams, and has created new opportunities in UK and India.

Focussing on project management and functional business analysis, we would like a graduate to join the teams, learning both applications in detail, and to contribute to their improvement and global rollout. You will work with experienced staff acting as mentors, to build your knowledge and skills.

The successful candidate will work with UK based managers and SMEs, key stakeholders in Paris and globally, and developers in India.

Key responsibilities of role

 The successful candidate will develop skills to handle the following responsibilities:

• Building and maintaining realistic project planning in Agile mode, contributing towards smooth running of the project by regularly monitoring and tracking everyday tasks, escalating promptly issues requiring support from line management, programme management and sponsors.
• Analyse and define requirements from all necessary perspectives: end user, business sponsor, regulatory needs, security, performance, support, business continuity, data retention.
• Create User Stories/Functional Specifications to a necessary level of detail which allows both users and IT Developers to understand what is needed. Clarify/explain/articulate further if requested.
• Identifying and tracking risks, issues and interdependencies for each application release. Understand and manage their impact, escalating in a timely manner to senior managers and stakeholders where necessary.
• Performing functional systems testing. Ensure that appropriate test plans and scripts are formulated for all projects you run. In the case of defects found during testing, lead arbitration/prioritisation discussions within the team and with the sponsor/users as needed. Maintaining traceability to User Stories and identify entry/exit criteria for each test phase.
• Plan, execute and support the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) phase. Provide input on the priority of any defects found in UAT.
• Helping to adjust release scope to manage unforeseen high priority issues or requirements.
• Develop and implement user training requirements identified including but not limited to the creation of user guides.
• Help ensure that the project team is positive and motivated to achieve results, taking all members views into account.
• Provide regular project status reporting to FRESH management, project sponsors and stakeholders. Build strong collaborative relationships with global stakeholders.

Experience, Qualifications & Competencies

• Excellent academic background, minimum 2:1 (or equivalent) in Business / Technology degree.
• An ability to demonstrate a strong interest in IT systems (through studies, external projects/interests, work experience)
• Basic knowledge of project management, ideally including “agile” principles
• Attention to detail
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills
• High level of initiative, drive and enthusiasm