In this article, Abel ARAYA (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance, 2025) offers an inside look at the Markets COO Office at HSBC Continental Europe. Through his one-year apprenticeship, he shares how this central function coordinates trading activities, manages budgets and risks, and ensures that the Markets division operates with efficiency and strategic discipline.
About the company
HSBC was founded in 1865 as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to finance trade between Europe and Asia, and has since grown into one of the world’s leading financial institutions. Headquartered in London and listed in London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris and Bermuda, it held around 3.2 trillion US dollars in assets at the end of 2025, employed roughly 211,000 people across some 56 countries and territories, and served more than 40 million customers.
On the wholesale side, its corporate and institutional clients are covered by the Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) division, which generated around 27.6 billion US dollars in revenue in 2025. Within CIB, the Markets and Securities Services teams provide liquidity, financing and risk-management solutions across fixed income, credit, FX, equities and securities services to large corporates, financial institutions, asset managers, hedge funds and governments. In this business HSBC competes with the other major global markets houses, such as JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs in the United States, and Deutsche Bank, Barclays, BNP Paribas and Société Générale in Europe, differentiating itself through its international network and its historical strength in Asia.
I worked at HSBC Continental Europe, the group’s Paris-headquartered subsidiary covering continental Europe. Since the sale of its French retail banking business on 1 January 2024, it has refocused on corporate and institutional clients, with a consolidated balance sheet of 251 billion euros in total assets at the end of 2025.
Logo of HSBC.
Source: the company.
During my apprenticeship, the Markets division was in the process of being integrated into the broader Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) structure. This reorganization involved significant changes to how the division was managed, reported, and resourced, which made my experience at the COO Office particularly rich in terms of exposure to strategic and operational transformation.
My internship
My missions
As a Business Manager Assistant within the Markets COO team, my work covered a wide range of financial and operational responsibilities. I contributed to the production of internal reports and presentations for senior management, summarizing the performance, expenses, and headcount of the Markets division. These documents were used in management meetings, financial steering committees, and due diligence reviews conducted during the restructuring process.
I was closely involved in cost forecasting and budget follow-up, helping the team anticipate upcoming expenses and identify deviations from plan. One of my key projects was the annual broker review, which required consolidating trading flow data across all asset classes to assess the efficiency, transparency, and compliance of relationships with external counterparties. This involved close coordination with traders, operations, and compliance teams across Paris, Germany, and India.
I also supported the preparation of headcount reports and organizational charts used by senior management to steer the restructuring of the division. These deliverables required precision and a thorough understanding of how each desk contributed to the overall structure of the Markets business.
Required skills and knowledge
This role required a combination of analytical and interpersonal skills. On the technical side, strong proficiency in Excel was essential for building budget models, consolidating large datasets, and producing financial summaries. Familiarity with the structure of a markets division, including the roles of front office, operations, compliance, and finance, was also important to contextualize the data I was working with.
Soft skills mattered just as much. Coordinating with stakeholders across multiple countries and hierarchies required clear written and oral communication, the ability to manage competing priorities, and a high level of attention to detail. The pace of the environment also demanded adaptability: priorities shifted quickly, and producing reliable output under time pressure was a daily reality.
What I learned
This experience gave me a deep understanding of how financial institutions manage their operations behind the scenes. I learned how budgets are built, how costs are tracked and challenged, and how strategic decisions made at senior level translate into concrete actions on the trading floor. I also developed a much clearer picture of how risk is monitored and how compliance frameworks shape the day-to-day behaviour of a markets division.
Working across teams in Paris, Frankfurt, and India gave me direct exposure to how global coordination works in practice. I learned the importance of data quality and rigour: a single inconsistency in a report could lead to misunderstandings or delayed decisions at the highest level. This reinforced my attention to detail and my commitment to producing work that is both accurate and clearly communicated.
Financial concepts related to my internship
I present below three financial concepts related to my internship: cost and budget management, change management, and due diligence.
Cost and Budget Management
Cost and budget management refers to the process by which an organization plans, monitors, and controls its financial resources to ensure that spending remains aligned with strategic objectives. In a markets division, this involves tracking a wide range of costs: staff compensation, technology infrastructure, external service providers, and regulatory compliance expenses. The budget is typically set at the beginning of the year based on business forecasts and strategic priorities, and then monitored on a monthly basis against actual expenditure.
In my role at the Markets COO team, cost and budget management was one of my primary responsibilities. I contributed to the monthly budget follow-up by consolidating cost data from different desks and entities, identifying variances between forecasts and actual figures, and preparing summary reports for senior management. When a desk was running significantly above or below budget, the COO team would investigate the drivers and, if necessary, escalate to management for a decision. I learned that in a large institution like HSBC, even small deviations in cost forecasts can have a significant impact on the division’s overall financial performance, particularly during a period of restructuring where cost targets were closely scrutinized.
Change Management
Change management is the structured approach through which an organization transitions from its current state to a desired future state while minimizing disruption to operations and people. In the context of financial institutions, it often involves reorganizations, mergers of business lines, technology migrations, or regulatory-driven transformations. Effective change management requires clear communication, stakeholder alignment, and careful sequencing of decisions to ensure continuity of service during the transition.
During my apprenticeship, HSBC’s Markets division was undergoing a major strategic restructuring: the Markets and Securities Services unit was being integrated into the broader Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) structure. This was not a minor adjustment, but a fundamental reorganization of how the division was governed, resourced, and reported. I observed the effects of this transformation directly through my work: headcount reports were being revised regularly, cost allocation frameworks were changing, and the responsibilities of the COO team were evolving to reflect the new organizational model. I worked closely with the COO based in Germany, who was managing part of this transition, and I saw first-hand how much coordination and precision are required to keep a large division functioning smoothly while simultaneously reshaping it. Change management, in that context, was not an abstract concept: it was a daily operational reality.
Due Diligence
Due diligence refers to the comprehensive process of investigating and verifying information before making a significant business decision. In investment banking and financial services, it is most associated with mergers and acquisitions, where a buyer conducts a thorough review of the target company’s finances, legal situation, and operations. However, the concept applies equally to other contexts, including the assessment of external service providers, the validation of financial data before it is presented to management, and the review of counterparty relationships.
In my role, due diligence took the form of the annual broker review process. This involved systematically reviewing the trading flows directed to each external broker, verifying the accuracy of the data, and assessing whether the allocation of business to each counterparty was justified by objective performance criteria. The process required gathering data from multiple sources, reconciling inconsistencies, and presenting findings to senior management with clear supporting evidence. I also contributed to due diligence exercises conducted during the restructuring process, where the COO team was asked to validate headcount and cost data before it was presented to the executive committee. These experiences taught me that rigorous due diligence is not just about finding problems: it is about building the trust and confidence that allow organizations to make well-informed decisions.
Why should I be interested in this post?
If you are a student in business and finance considering a career in financial markets, this post offers a perspective that is rarely covered in mainstream discussions about finance careers: the operational and strategic backbone of a trading floor. Most students aspire to front-office roles in trading or sales, and rightly so. But understanding how a markets division is actually run, how its costs are managed, how its risks are monitored, and how major transformations are navigated, is an invaluable foundation for any finance career.
A role in a Markets COO or Business Management team is particularly well-suited for students who want to develop a transversal understanding of markets while building strong analytical and organizational skills. It is also increasingly recognized as a credible path toward front-office positions: many senior traders and sales managers have spent time in COO or control functions early in their careers, and this experience gives them a level of business awareness that pure front-office profiles often lack. Whether you are targeting trading, sales, risk, or corporate finance, the skills and perspective gained in this type of role will give you a genuine advantage.
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▶ Louis DETALLE A quick review of an Analyst in Transaction Services’ job
▶ Mickael RUFFIN My Internship Experience as a Structured Finance Analyst at Société Générale
Useful resources
HSBC — Corporate and Institutional Banking
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision — Sound Practices for Operational Risk Management
About the author
The article was written in July 2026 by Abel ARAYA (ESSEC Business School, Master in Finance, 2025).
▶ Discover all articles by Abel ARAYA