Combining valuable lessons with gaining responsibility and having fun – FFP interns tell what it’s like to work on the trading floor

04-07-2024 15:00

(FFP #2) Rolling into the second part of the FFP 2024 series, we meet three Future Finance Professional (FFP) interns from three different teams: Fixed Income Sales, Structured Products and Financial Reporting Tools & Data. Additionally, we are given a glimpse of the afterwork life of the FFPs. Take a deep dive into the FFP life and see why Markets LC&I is the ideal place for kicking off your career in the financial industry.

Drifting into summer holiday season means one thing for FFPs; it’s time to show what they’ve got. But summer as intern is not only work, but a lot of fun too. In June – a couple of months into their internship – the FFPs had their second afterwork event. The Fun Managers – dedicated to organise various events for the FFPs – had been very secretive about the programme for the day.

The event begins with the Fun Managers bringing in pizzas for everyone. While eating, the atmosphere is relaxed and bubbly talk echoes around the room. The FFPs have been advised to bring sportswear and bathing suits, and guesses of the plans vary from summer “Olympics” games to boat rides. After a quick change of clothes, the FFPs are guided to a shuttle – and an exciting bus ride begins.

Fun Managers Max Grönroos and Julia Karinen as bus ride captains ready to guide the FFPs into the evening.

First stop of the evening takes place in Jätkäsaari, Helsinki, where giant plastic bubbles are waiting in a football field. Before the game begins, the interns are divided into two teams. Throughout the bubble football game, you could hear laughter and cheering across both teams. After the playful competition, everyone heads back to the bus and towards Espoo for swimming. The rest of the evening is about relaxing, having fun and testing moves on the dancefloor.

Alongside some pictures from the event, let’s hear what three of our FFPs, Axel Vanhala, Pyörni Vartiainen and Kasper Rantamäki, have been doing during the internship; what kind of work they do, and their thoughts on the FFP programme.

By FFPs Axel, Pyörni & Kasper

Axel Vanhala (23), intern in Fixed Income Sales, Markets

In 2020, I started my studies at Hanken School of Economics with a major in finance and a minor in statistics and am currently working towards a master’s degree.

Ever since starting my studies I have found the idea of working on a trading floor to be very appealing. Hence, I took the opportunity to apply for the FFP programme last fall and am very glad I did. Despite only being here for a little over a month, I have had a great time and gotten a lot of responsibility.

The Fixed Income Sales team focuses on selling a broad range of financial products. The team can broadly be divided into two product groups: rates and credit. I am primarily doing rates products over the summer, which refer to interest rates.

In the rates sales team, we have two main products: interest rate swaps and bonds issued by governments, supranational organizations and their affiliated agencies. The credit sales team primarily sells corporate bonds, which can further be categorized into investment grade (lower risk) and high yield (higher risk) products.

Bubble football team preparing for the game: Julius Virolainen, Kasper Rantamäki, Jussi Teerisalo, Julia Karinen, Lilja Korpi, Madelein Luomanen, Pyörni Vartiainen, Santtu Bergendahl, Axel Vanhala, and Patrick Campbell.

We discuss and pitch hedging and trade ideas to our clients that utilize interest rate swaps or other interest rate derivatives. Many of the interest rate strategies also make use of multiple financial instruments at the same time.

Our corporate clients are very knowledgeable about the products and fixed income markets, which makes the job particularly engaging and fun. In the fixed income markets, the possibilities to combine and structure different products and positions is virtually endless. You can truly capture or hedge any risk that you can think of with the help of the instruments that Nordea offers. Because of this, there is a lot to learn, which really suits me.

Despite having some previous experience from the financial industry, the environment on the trading floor is unique. There is a lot of expertise and product-specific knowledge in the different teams, and it is beneficial to understand the whole offering of what is possible.

Pyörni Vartiainen (25), Structured Products, Markets

My name is Pyörni; I’m a second-year student of industrial engineering, and recently graduated with an MSc in mathematics. I’ve just started my internship in the Structured Products team, which works closely with both traders and sales people to design and issue structured notes – instruments with all sorts of customized exposures to different asset classes, such as equity, credit, and rates. The structuring team is hence a perfect vantage point to not only learn about complex over-the-counter derivatives but also follow the work of different teams throughout a product’s lifecycle.

At issuance, structurers have to decide on the right underlying securities and payoff parameters depending on market conditions (e.g. funding spreads, credit quality, dividend yields) as well as client preferences, wherein we rely on the expertise of the sales teams. After issuance, the product is continuously sold and traded until it matures, so it’s up to the traders to keep the bank’s position hedged against market risks. In sum, lots of different skillsets are required for the business to run smoothly.

When I first heard about the FFP programme, I was honestly intimidated by the internship position descriptions, many of which seemed very different from what I had learned even in advanced financial engineering courses. For any prospective applicants who might feel the same way: don’t get discouraged. At the end of the day, coursework can only get you so far: it’s tenacity, curiosity and endless ad hoc googling that ultimately yields the best learning results. You learn on the job too, of course – a coffee break conversation can often teach you more than a textbook chapter. All in all, I think Nordea Markets is an ideal environment for students interested in finance to cut their teeth in. You’re surrounded by such diverse expertise that you really can’t avoid learning.

Kasper Rantamäki (24), Financial Reporting Tools & Data

I am a masters student in Aalto University, majoring in Applied Mathematics with minors in Financial Engineering and Computer Science. I'm planning on starting to work on my thesis next fall and wrapping up my studies by next summer. Previous summers, I have worked in various research groups in Aalto University as well as in CSC.

As an FFP, I work as an Assistant Controller in Financial Reporting Tools & Data team. Our team provides different financial reporting and control solutions for both Treasury and Markets. These solutions include daily P&L estimates as well as monthly and quarterly reports among many others. Understandably, such information is detrimental for our stakeholders and being able to provide the data reliably and consistently is crucial for the functioning of our organization.

In Financial Reporting and Control it is paramount to be able to quickly access and validate the required data. To allow fast development of solutions, our team has its own Python package filled with useful tools for accessing and processing data from various sources. This is also something I have been able to contribute to with a module for querying data from a newer system.

FFPs and Fun Managers cheering after the game.

My tasks have mainly focused on automating a variety of control processes, freeing up time from otherwise tedious manual tasks. This has allowed me to gain insight into the many systems in use and has been a great learning opportunity on how vast quantities of data are handled in a large corporation.

While the work itself has been interesting and highly educational, the best part about the summer, so far, has been the other FFPs. Chatting with them has provided a wider perspective into the roles present at Nordea, some of which differ significantly from my own. Without the networking opportunities provided to the FFPs all of this would be hard to learn about.

Watch this space for upcoming FFP blogs – meanwhile, check out some of the previous blogs featuring the FFP interns:

FFP 2024 kick-off – Zooming in on former FFPs’ career journeys and a ‘fantastic Welcoming Event’ - meet our talents

Meet four FFPs, see what they’re up to and what makes it “wonderful to come to the office every day”

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