What I learnt during my internship at ICICI Bank -By Rajat Seth from DMS IIT Delhi

‘There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen’ - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. And my journey of internship at ICICI Bank pretty much falls on the same lines.

ICICI Bank is amongst the largest private banks in India. It has 5200+ branches and 15000+ ATMs across the country. They have a presence in 18 countries and have employed more than one lakh people directly. Moreover, it lies in the category of ‘too big to fail’ as per the RBI. All these facts make it clear how significant this organisation is for the nation. The average age at the ICICI Bank is between 30-35 years which indicates the younger generation has a huge role to play in taking the bank to greater heights in the future.

ICICI Bank has dealt brilliantly with the challenges put forward by COVID-19. They were the first to introduce mobile ATMs in the country. Organisations showing compassion for their employees are the ones who can get through a crisis. You can have a very demanding success-oriented culture and be very caring for your employees as well. ICICI is one such organisation.

The process of securing the offer

For the reasons mentioned above, when ICICI Bank visited our campus for the summer placements, I was keen to make it through and secure the offer. The selection process for the internship at ICICI Bank was a stringent one and had the following three rounds:

1. Shortlisting based on the CVs
2. Group discussion 
3. Personal interview

For getting through the selection process, my knowledge of the basics of the banking industry came in handy. I prepared my CV well and knew about the significant offerings of the company. Since I follow the news regularly, I knew about the recent events related to the bank. All this helped me in performing well in all the rounds.

Apprehensions of the first virtual internship

I was intimidated in the beginning about working from home as this was a new experience for me. I come from a sales background in the automotive industry, and the banking sector was also going to be a unique experience for me. But I have always believed that if you keep working hard, things will eventually fall into place. So, I kept my head down and gave it all I had. 

The systematic framework of an action-packed team

Projects were shared with the interns almost a month before the internship began. The details of our respective mentor and guide were also shared with us well in advance. Looking back, I now realise how crucial this step was. It helped to familiarise myself with the bank and the projects assigned to me. This saved me a lot of time later on when the internship began.

Due to COVID-19, we were the first batch of the ICICI Bank internship from home program. All the interns introduced themselves in our WhatsApp group, and we got to know fun things about each other. The ICICI Bank campus engagement team did an exceptional job in maximising the learnings of the interns by conducting regular lectures of senior leaders under The Big Bank Theory series. The virtual induction was smoothly held, the InQUIZitive Friday quizzes were fun, and the consistent engagement activities were also very well planned. The final session was also memorable and showed the efforts put forward by the campus team, even in such challenging situations.

Mentorship that matters 

My mentor and the UPI team members with whom I interacted were always kind and helpful. The best thing was receiving live feedback on my work. I submitted my weekly reports on Saturdays and discussed it with my mentor on Monday. This process helped me to fill the gaps in my understanding and always steered me in the right direction. Despite being a virtual internship due to the current circumstances, there was no dearth of learning in this experience. There were weekly milestones, which were set by the team, and they were instrumental in the whole execution of the project.

After experiencing the culture and the ethos at the ICICI Bank, I am not surprised that ICICI Bank has been adjudged the ‘Best Company to Work For’ by Business Today magazine in the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector for four years in a row.

8 weeks of unlimited and valuable learnings

During my summer internship at ICICI Bank, I was working with the UPI team in developing their merchant onboarding framework. The project given to me had direct business implications, and this shows the trust that the bank put in the interns. ICICI Bank has issued over 68 million UPI handles; they do 125 million monthly PSP transactions and INR 57 billion worth of monthly acquiring transactions. ICICI Bank ranks amongst the top players in UPI business as they hold more than 20 per cent market share in the acquiring business. Some of the major learnings are:

• How key existing payment systems work, the critical inefficiencies of these systems, and the various ways to reduce these inefficiencies using fintech innovations and other solutions. 

• For the merchant onboarding business, I have a good understanding of the merchant onboarding processes followed in India and across the world, the myriad challenges faced in these processes due to various regional, technical and regulatory issues and the unique ways to deal with each of them. 

• Digitising the KYC process and exploring the latest payment innovations.

A company with a strong culture of organisational ethics

I believe that the way ICICI Bank kept its internship commitment despite COVID-19, by converting their summer internship into a virtual format in a very short time speaks volumes about their culture and their work-ethos. The senior leaders at the bank are always open to new and innovative suggestions.

In the era of digitisation, ICICI Bank is an indisputable leader in the Indian Banking sector. After every day at work, I never felt tired and was always eager to learn more. That’s the kind of energy you feel yourself to be infused with when you are associated with such great organisations which are full of optimistic and enthusiastic people.

A bit of advice

My one key suggestion to all the young aspirants is that you must always look forward to adding value to the organisation you are associated with and only then expect anything else in return. Once the organisation understands your passion and commitment for work, your learnings will itself maximise. All the great organisations always look out for their employees first, since the employees are whom the customers associate an organisation with. My biggest leadership takeaway is ‘Take care of the people, and they will take care of your organisation.’