Brian Wilson - Investment Administrator - HSBC Securities Services

Brian Wilson
Investment Administrator
HSBC Securities Services

Tell me about what you do.

I'm part of a team of eight; there are five administrators, two assistant managers and a manager. We look after the pricing of unit trusts and also portfolio month ends.

I do the pricing of the unit trusts in the mornings, and the month end portfolio reporting is ongoing. We are on a weekly rotation for the unit trusts we price, but for portfolio reporting you tend to keep the same clients for six months.

How have you developed in your job?

When I first joined, the graduate training programme gave me an overview of all the different departments. Then when I came to this section, I was given a couple of people to shadow. If they were busy I'd ask somebody else, and I found everyone was really happy to help me out.
Since then I've been on three or four internal training courses.

I did the first part of my Investment Administration Qualification (IAQ) right at the end of the graduate training programme and I'll sit the second one in April. And after that I will do the regulation part to get my merit award.

What attracted you to Investment Operations?

The degree I have is quite general. We covered a lot of topics so there wasn't anything I could pick out and say "right, this is what I'm going to do", like there would have been if I'd studied accounting. But I did want to do something in Finance.

I didn't know it at the time but a couple of my friends worked in Investment Operations, and when I said what I was going to do they said that's what they did too.

How do you see your career progressing?

There are so many different departments here that I don't think it would be a problem if I went and said 'look I want to do something else' that I was particularly interested in. But it will be a while before I say anything like that!

In terms of looking to the future you are aware of what you need to do in order to get to the next level.

What would you say to others considering a career in Investment Operations?

I would say that Financial Services is a growth industry. I'm certainly happy in my work and earning a reasonable amount of money.

How would you explain what Investment Operations is to a friend?

If they looked at the Financial Times and turned to the unit trusts pages, I would say that we are involved in calculating the value of some of those and supplying that information to the media and fund managers.