Being a student of the banking and finance domain, it is a dream of every student to work in an institution like Reserve Bank of India. Before joining The National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), I had no idea about the selection process, eligibility criteria, etc., but when I was going through the internship reports, one name that caught my eyes was RBI. I too decided that one day I would be doing my dream internship with RBI. So somehow, I made through the selection process.
On the reporting day, I along with a bunch of other students reported to the Human Resource Department where we were given a brief about the organization and the allocated departments. I was allocated to the Department of Economic and Policy Research (DEPR) and had to report to the CGM in charge of the department. I was briefed about the various division within the departments, their primary functions, and their expectations of me. Finally, I was allocated the Division of Financial Markets (DFM).
Since it was a research department, there was no pre-assigned work for me. It took me almost a week to brainstorm the topic of the research project. After consulting it with the director and manager of the division, I fixed my project title as “Interest Rate Risk- A study about banks under PCA and Non-PCA framework in India”
It took me a few days to revisit the concepts and basics of the research topic. I used to get valuable inputs for my research topic from not just my division but from people of other divisions as well who were more familiar with the topic. The best thing about RBI is their working culture, the employees from all departments are so helping, humble and always down to earth. Along with it, it was a great experience having an amazing lunch with all the RBI officers in the same lounge. The lunch break was a great opportunity to interact with officers from other departments as well.
The annual C D Deshmukh memorial lecture was organized by RBI on 25th April 2019 during my internship period and I was lucky enough to get the chance to attend the same. I could never imagine being in the same room with the Governor of RBI, all the deputy governors, and other officers. It was very nice to hear from the intellectual minds.
At the end of the internship period, we were instructed to present our work in front of all the officers from different departments. Initially, I was a bit scared to present it on such a big platform, but they created such a warm environment that I felt very comfortable. I didn’t feel like leaving that place and look forward to work there again.
Karishma Rathi
(Batch 2018-20)