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Introduction

Internship is the working attachment with an organization to have a practical working


experience. This working experience is an effective tool to correlate the theoretical
knowledge with the pragmatic approach. For this reason, internship is a handy tool for a
business graduates. Doing internship in IDLC Finance Limited gave me an immense scope to
have an in-depth idea about the financial industry. The importance of financial intermediaries
in the development of the overall economy of country cannot be described in short. From the
inception of the civilization, the financial sector dominates the economic development of a
country by mobilizing the savings of the general people and by channeling those savings to
investment and eventually, by ensuring economic development and growth. With the
emergence of financial sector in Bangladesh government has also come through different
activities to reform and revitalize the sector. This report is an Internship Report prepared as a
requirement for the completion of the BBA Program, North South University. The primary
goal of internship is to provide the job exposure to the student and an opportunity to
implement theoretical knowledge in real life situation.I got this valuable opportunity to work
as an intern in IDLC Finance Ltd, one of the leading Non-Bank Financial Institution (NBFI)
in Bangladesh.

Company Overview
IDLC Finance Limited was established in Bangladesh in 1985, as the first-ever
leasing company of the country, through the collaboration of IFC, German Investment and
Development Company (DEG), Kookmin Bank and Korean Development Finance
Corporation, the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, the City Bank Limited, IPDC
of Bangladesh Limited, and SadharanBima Corporation. As the company evolved over the
years, the foreign shareholding gradually moved out and the last foreign shareholding was
bought out by local sponsors in 2009. IDLCs strong focus on revenue diversification has led
to the establishment of different client segments in the Corporate, Retail, SME and Capital
Markets of Bangladesh. The current product portfolio consists of Corporate and Structured
Finance solutions for local and multinational corporate houses; Personal financing products
such as deposits, home loans, car loans, personal loans etc.; financing facilities for Small and
Internship Report on IDLC Finance Limited

Medium Enterprises; Merchant Banking solutions such as Portfolio Management and


Investment Banking (IPO, RPO, Bond Issuance, Rights Shares Offering etc.); and Brokerage
services. With this diversified array of products, IDLC Finance Limited is at present the
largest multi-product Non-Bank Financial Institution in Bangladesh, having two whollyowned subsidiaries, IDLC Investments Limited and IDLC Securities Limited for carrying out
its capital market operations. The Group is represented by over 559 employees working in 28
branches in the major cities of the country. IDLC is highly respected by its clients, peers,
employees and regulators for its professional pool of resources, its progressive and enabling
work environment, and its strong ethical practices. With significant growth in its business and
profit over the last few years, the company has consistently demonstrated exemplary
corporate governance and strict statutory compliance, and is a standard bearer in this regard
in the financial sector of Bangladesh. Moreover, starting from 2010, its silver jubilee year,
IDLC has decided to step up its commitment to sustainable business practices, with particular
focus on environmental and social development. It has subscribed to a number of leading
local and international sustainability initiatives including the Bangladesh CSR Centre, the UN
Global Compact (UNGC) and the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP
FI), and IDLC is the first company to become a member of UNEPFI from Bangladesh. As
part of this commitment, IDLC is now active in promoting responsible practices among its
stakeholder groups, mostly its employees and clients, while it is streamlining its own policies
and practices to emerge as a truly responsible brand.

Department and People


I did my internship under the consumer division in the credit risk management
department. It is a very small but centralized department. The reason labeled it as a small
department is due to the number of employees in this department. The department consists of
ten credit analysts, two senior managers and a support executive. My supervisor was one of
the assistant managers of the department. All most all of them are former student of Dhaka
University and working here in IDLC for quite a while. The people in my department were
very friendly and co-operative. They made sure that I was feeling comfortable from the very
first day. I never got any sort of unfair treatment from them. Even though the department is
really small, the people in the department make it livelier than the other ones.

Internship Report on IDLC Finance Limited

Working Environment
According to world renowned psychologist Frederick Herzberg, working environment
of an organization plays a major part in employees job satisfaction. A positive, collaborative,
creative work environment is what retains employees in the long run, and motivates them to
work harder. One of the best features of IDLC Finance Ltd is its working environment. The
working environment of credit risk management department of IDLC Finance Ltd is simply
excellent.
All the employees of the department are very professional when it comes to do their
jobs. On the other hand when anyone needed help, they were always there to help out each
other. From the first day, whenever I had any trouble in understanding anything, which I must
admit that it happened a lot on my initial days of internship, each of the department had
helped me in every way they could. I worked directly under the supervision of Reaz Hassan
Awwal, assistant manager of credit risk management, consumer division. Most of the things I
may have learnt in my internship experience, the credit for that goes directly to this person.
He has helped me immensely in my internship days. Not only he, but also the other
colleagues have also been very helpful and never said no when I needed their help.
On top of that, all the employees of IDLC are very friendly in nature. At first I was
little worried that how I would work with so many people who are older than me and because
of that reason I was a bit stiff in my starting days of internship. But within the first week my
colleagues eased me up. And within no time I felt part of the huge IDLC family. We often
used to have lunch together and also hanged out after the office hours. The treatment I got
from them was very much appreciated.
The people within the department used to make the department very lively. Starting
from the boss to the support executive, everyone used to make jokes and share incidents
which used to make the place much more alive than the other departments. The physical
environment too was excellent. Each department had multiple cubicles with PC for their
employees. With sufficient lighting and fully air conditioned department makes the working
environment much more pleasant. After judging all the factors I had to admit, the working
environment is excellent at IDLC Finance Limited.

Internship Report on IDLC Finance Limited

Learning Experience in IDLC


I had the great opportunity to learn a lot of things during my internship period in
IDLC Finance Limited. My learning experience began from day one. My supervisor and my
colleagues were very supportive and helped me to learn a lot of things which was needed for
my internship. The things I learned throughout my internship program are:
In this internship, the most important thing that I got to learn was the process of
operating FLEXCUBE. I was properly trained to use FLEXCUBE; an international banking
software made by the second largest software making company in the world, Oracle
Corporation. Thisbanking software enables to keep records of the clients and also helps to
disburse loan for the organization. Only some of the leading banks and NBFI use this
software. I was trained very effectively since one of my major responsibilities was to operate
this software on a daily basis.
Most of the works in IDLC are done in Microsoft Excel. As a result, I got to learn
quite a few things from the other colleagues as well as from my supervisor. I had to use Pivot
tables to maintain database, and I also had to use VLOOKUP on a daily basis. I also had to
use different all sortsof formulas that were required to sort and acquire data. I always thought
I was good at handling Excel, but after the guidance and the practice of internship, I realized
that I have been skilled on it even better.
I often had to prepare car loan applicants bank statements on behalf of the credit
analysts of IDLC. My supervisor taught me how to make the basic analysis based on the
prepared bank statements. Based on that, I used to analyze the statement and do the analytical
part as well for the credit analysts although the respective analyst used to recheck the
statements for safety purposes. This gave me the opportunity to learn and gain confidence in
myself.
I also made two client visits along with the analysts. This was another completely
different type of learning experience. I observed the credit analyst throughout a visit since I
wanted to observe how an analyst makes the analysis. Through this visit, I got the chance to
have a firsthand experience where I learned how a credit analyst verifies data and how to
make aneffective observation.
Internship Report on IDLC Finance Limited

Lastly and most importantly, I learned a few ways to detect forgery. It is usually not
easy to detect forgery; but I still got a lot of pointers and some basic knowledge regarding the
issues from my supervisor who is an expert at detecting forgery. I also got to witness a few
clients with fake documents in my time here at IDLC.

Skills Gained and Honed


An internship program helps a student to learn new skills as well as hone existing
ones, particularly those which will be valuable for the future. Internship at IDLC gave me a
lot of opportunities to gain and hone multiple skills.
My communication skills got much better over the last three months here in IDLC. I
had to constantly mail my superiors which sometimes included even the head of the division.
These practices made my formal communication skills much better. On top of that, I also
learned how to use Microsoft Outlook effectively. I also had to constantly maintain
communication with the third party organizations as a part of my duties. I believe all these
things really improved my communication skills.
I always believed that I had a good interpersonal skill and here I got to prove it. I had
to constantly deal with individuals from different departments of consumer division. Most of
the time people from the other department used to be impatient and inconsiderate but I used
to handle them tactfully using my interpersonal skills. On top of that, due to my interpersonal
skills, I was able to build quite a few connections with people from other departments.
My time management skills also improved drastically. Over the time period I learned
how to use my time efficiently, increase my productivity, and how to multitask effectively
and efficiently. For example, in my first month in IDLC I could only make 10-12
FLEXCUBE entries in an entire day but as time went by I could make up to 30-35 entries and
keep track of my other works as well.
These were the skills I thought got to develop during my internship period. I am
confident that I will be able to make the best use of these skills in the future.

Internship Report on IDLC Finance Limited

My Contribution to the Company


Over my course of internship in IDLC Finance Limited, I had a various sorts of jobs
and activities. Here are the works that I have done to contribute to the company:
Operating FLEXCUBE software was one of my main responsibilities in IDLC. This
software enables Credit Administration department to disburse loans to the clients. Even the
slightest mistake could halt the disbursement process and create complications. But I was
given the responsibility which I did very carefully. Over the period of three months, I did
more than nine hundred FLEXCUBE entries.
Operating and maintaining the pipeline were other daily operations of mine. Pipeline
is the central spared sheet which contains all the files data. This department maintains this
spread sheet by general Microsoft Excel. The basic important information of files has been
kept as a record in this Pipeline. Each of the Pipelines represents a different category of file
information. And my duty was to update the pipeline every day.
I also had to create clients appraisal on a daily basis. It was basically a writing down
all the information regarding the client on an excel sheet. These appraisals were usually a two
paged document, the first page is about the basic information and second page is analytical. I
used to complete the first page and later the credit analysts used to fill out the rest.
Another duty was to prepare organized bank statements of the car loan applicants.
This bank statement plays a vital role whether the loan will be given or not. Usually a car
loan applicant needs to provide bank statements to IDLC. My duty was to prepare the bank
statement in such a manner that the credit analysts could easily take the decision. These
organized bank statements indicate applicants average monthly balance and credit turnover
for previous one year. If the applicant has a pleasant average balance, turnover and also
indicates that he can pay the installments properly, then the loan is usually provided.
Although it was not a hard job, it used to take a lot of time. And by doing it, I used to save a
lot of important time of the analysts.
Sending and receiving CPV was another important aspect of my job. To ensure
customers reliability, our department collects Customers Performance Valuation (CPV) with
the help ofa third party agency. This agency verified three types of documents provided by
Internship Report on IDLC Finance Limited

the applicant, those need to have address verification, rental verification and bank statement
verification. My responsibility was to send all the statements which needed verification to the
third party agency, and also received and recorded the CPV when they came back. I also had
to distribute those CPVs to the credit analysts.
Maintaining communication with a third party agency (Brisk Management Service)
was another way I contributed to the organization. I had to call the third party and ensure that
the pending documents came at our end at the right time. I had to make follow up calls and
mails to ensure the punctuality of their service.
Updating appraisal formats was another work I used to do on a monthly basis. As I
mentioned earlier, basic information and technical analysis where made in the appraisal
format. To ensure easier and effective way to do so, I used to make some adjustments to the
format with my supervisor. Sometimes I also used to do correction if there was any sort of
mistake in the format. This way, I contributed to the organization.
I also made a recommendation regarding FLEXCUBE entries to the senior managers
of the department. This software entry used to take quite a while and due to that urgent files
could not be passed to the next stage. I recommended that the software entries should be
passed on to another department which will make the disbursement easier. And the senior
members of the department discussed and agreed to take necessary actions to implement it
from the next month.
I also had to give training to some permanent employees of another department. Since
I was really good at operating FLEXCUBE, I was given the responsibility to train a couple of
employees who will be taking over the software operations from the next month. On top of
that, they will be training others as well, so I had to be sure that I covered everything. I tried
my best and was successful to train them properly. After the training, I used to give them task
to analyze their progress and supervise them. This way I believe that I was able to make a
strong contribution to the organization.
At the end of each month, a lot of loan disbursements were made to maximize the
loan giving portfolio and meet monthly goals of the organization. I was requested to ensure
no disbursement was interrupted due to our department. To ensure that, I along with another
colleague used to call all the other branches that was going to disburse in the last few days.
Internship Report on IDLC Finance Limited

We used to ask if they were facing any kind of difficulties, and if they needed any support
from us. And once they pointed out the difficulties, we used to take necessary actions to solve
those issues as soon as possible. With our effort we ensured that no last moment
disbursement was interrupted. Later, our efforts were acknowledged by the senior managers
of the division and we were rewarded with some treat from the heads.

Overcoming Challenges
An internship programs best part is that it provides a student a lot of real life
experiences. Internship helps the student to go through the transition period from student life
to professional life. Often this transition is not that easy for a lot of students. I also had to face
quite few difficulties in my internship program. Not all of them were due to the organization
rather it mostly was due to some personal issues. Firstly I had difficulties accepting the fact
that my student life was over and I had to attend office every ten to six pm. I also felt all my
social life was over. But eventually with the help of my colleagues and the organizational
environment made me feel happier, eventually I mentally accepted the fact that my student
life was over. I also had to face some physical difficulties. Never in my life had I had to seat
approximately eight hours straight and work on a computer. As a result, in the first few weeks
my back and eyes used to pain really badly. On top of that I used to have a constant
headache. After two or three weeks I adapted to these pains and got used to it. I also used to
have difficulties multitasking and managing all the work within allocated time. And during
the last few days of each month, the pressure of work used to be too much. But with the help
of my supervisor and my colleagues, I learned ways to cope with pressure situation and also
learned ways to perform tasks in a much easier manner. These were the challenges I faced
during my internship. I believe facing these challenges and overcoming them will have a
positive effect in the near future.

Internship Report on IDLC Finance Limited

Comparison of Academic Learning and Internship Experience


An internship program is a platform for the students to relate their academic
knowledge in real life. Since, the students of the BBA program are engaged with very much
theoretical course work, only the internship program can give them some practical
knowledge. Before the internship, I had some expectations from this program, and hopeful
that I would learn even more.
When I started my internship program, initially it was a bit difficult to understand
what was going on around me. I felt like I knew nothing and I will not be able to do anything
there. I was unable to draw a linkage between my academic knowledge and real life work
setting. Since I was working in credit risk management department, I was able to witness how
a client is evaluated by the analyst, and how they came to a decision. When my supervisor
saw that I was having difficulties in linking the two things he helped me to understand how
evaluation process takes place. After his explanation of the process, I saw how the things I
have learned were being implemented in real but in little bit different manner.
I expected that my job will give me some opportunities to actually exercise some of
my knowledge. A lot of the works had nothing to do with implementing my academic
knowledge. For example, in our BBA program, we learned how to use time value of money
to find the monthly installments. But in reality, I used to calculate the installments and some
other ratios which were essential for analysts to take decision by using some software. But
were also times when I applied the knowledge I gathered from my academic experience into
my internship program, and my applications were accurate and correct.
What I understood while doing this internship program was experience in job is much
more valuable than academic knowledge. There were many decisions taken only on the basis
of experience. There were times when I saw the analysts were not giving loan even though
the clients had good bank statement and collaterals. Those decisions were made only on the
basis of previous learning and experience which cannot be taught by anyone. Through this
internship experience, I have learned that real life experience and academic knowledge are
not always similar. Real life situations are far more practical and sensitive to different factors,
and these situations frequently are changeable. But academic knowledge can be very helpful
in dealing with real life problems and can provide us a proper guideline.
Internship Report on IDLC Finance Limited

Influence in Career Planning


As I have done my major in Finance, I always wanted to see myself working at a
financial institution someday. I have heard many people saying that jobs at banks and NBFIs
are really boring. All these things created some doubt in my head. So this internship
experience helped to understand the nature of financial institutions and take my decision.
Through the internship, I have learned that rumors I heard about jobs in financial
institution was not totally wrong. The natures of the jobs are pretty tedious and tiresome.
People need to do same type of jobs over and over again. But even though the jobs nature
was dull and boring, people here had time to enjoy themselves. Through my experience I
have learnt and understood that a good working environment and right people can make the
job fun and interesting.
I have seen how dedicated and punctual employees are when it comes to serve the
organization. Everyone always put focus on meeting their deadline of submitting and
completing job. There is also a healthy competition among the employees to do more work
than one another. But at the same time, there is a friendly environment and everyone is
helping each other. These things really motivated me for this sector.
I also learned the compensation packages of IDLC Finance Ltd. The compensation
package of IDLC is quite competitive. Even though some employees feel that it should be
even better since it is currently the number one NBFI in Bangladesh. Even though there were
some complaints about the salary, the overall package makes it great. There are two festive
bonuses and a yearly performance bonus. The yearly performance bonus is most attractive
feature in IDLCs compensation package. The employees get up to ten to twelve times their
basic salary as their bonus based on their yearly performance. Even the banks do not provide
such huge performance bonuses to their employees. One negative thing about IDLC I have
learned was that, after a certain point of time, the growth of career comes to a halt due to the
organizational structure.
After learning all the pros and cons, I have realized that I would love to pursue my
career in such leading NBFI or other such financial institutions like bank. Job in such
financial institutions might not be that easy, sometimes it can be a bit tough but the
experience and social status someone gets by working in such organizations is definitely
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worth the toughness of the job someone has to go through. If co-workers are helpful and
friendly, that pain and toughness of the job will quickly fade away. This internship program
gave me the chance to assess everything regarding my future plans and come to a conclusion.

Redoing Internship
My internship experience was really valuable for me and I would not want to do it any
other way. But if I had to redo this internship for some reason once again, I would like to do
it in a multinational bank. I have already got a firsthand experience in one the leading nonbanking financial institution. I would love to be a part of corporate division of a multinational
bank. I am sure I would get different types of experience compared to what I have received in
IDLC.

Conclusion
All in all, this internship was a great learning experience for me. It has given me a real
world idea about financial institutions. I also got the opportunity to apply my academic
knowledge and dealt with real life problems. This experience has provided me a guideline in
which way I should pursue my career in the future. I also got to work in a corporate working
environment where everyone is helpful and at the same time, gives utmost priority to their
clients. I have learnt many things while working in IDLC Finance Ltd. Most importantly, I
learnt how to work as a team and the experience that I have gathered is invaluable.
Regardless of how much one thinks he has learned about his chosen career from
studies he will learn so much information and acquire so many skills from an internship. One
can never be really clued up on what a job entails until he has been working practically in that
role. This internship provided me the opportunity to gain hands on work experience that one
just cannot get in the classroom. I consider myself very lucky to have this opportunity and to
work as an intern at IDLC Finance Limited.

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