Barclays Experience

Question 1

What was the Dodd Frank section you have worked on

Answer 1

Dodd Frank Section 165

Question 2

What is section 165

Answer 2

Foreign Banking Organization (FBO) like Barclays to consolidate all US legal entity ownership under a single US Intermediary Holding Company (IHC)

Question 3

What IHC has to do?

Answer 3

IHC will have to meet the Fed Reserve Capital, Liquidity and Leverage requirements

Question 4

IHC

Answer 4

Umbrella Holding Company

Question 5

What was the business driver for the project

Answer 5

Leverage Ratio. Barclays wanted to reduce the balance sheet of about 40 Billion dollar in Assets and move them to the BBPLC entity in London

Question 6

Leverage Ratio = ?

Answer 6

Tier 1 Capital/Total Assets

Question 7

What was your role in Barclays project

Answer 7

UAT test management and project management role. Part of the PMO group that was managing the project

Question 8

What were your responsibilities in Barclays project

Answer 8

i was responsible for conducting the SIT and UAT. I worked with different FO, MO, Operations, Finance and Downstream groups to conduct the testing

Question 9

What was the tool you have used in testing

Answer 9

JIRA

Question 10

What was your role as a project manager in this project?

Answer 10

Involved in preparation of various sets of documentation, preparing the runbook, executing the runbook, tracking the progress, producing reports, chasing team for the progress status updates

Question 11

Did you create the runbook for the project

Answer 11

Yes i created the runbook for project execution

Question 12

What were two primary work streams

Answer 12

a) Migrate the US Bank Prime positions to PLC

b) Migrate the BDCF positions (Listed Options, Listed Stocks and Futures) to PLC

Question 13

What were the infrastructure change requirements

Answer 13

a) Create a new BPS settlement system for PLC
b) Move BCDF from BCI to BBPLC trading book
c) Establish BPS to DTC relationship for settlement and regulatory compliance

Question 14

What are the activities that you performed in your role in Barclays

Answer 14

a) Chasing and collecting and establishing contact with different groups and identify the workflows involved
b) Prepare SIT scope of testing and track the execution by working with the IT teams
c) Prepare Runbook for Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 for UAT test execution
d) Prepare the UAT test plan
f) During execution, log the defects and follow up and track the defects to closure
g) Track the progress of UAT
h) Produced daily and weekly status reports

Question 15

Explain Bank Prime

Answer 15

In the Bank Prime project we needed to migrate the positions from BPS 293 & 294 to BPS 222 and henceforth, under the new booking model, the trades should flow down to BPS 222.

There were three main flows:
Done Away
Done With Pre Allocated
Done With Post Allocated

Question 16

Explain Done Away

Answer 16

a) Trades booked outside of Barclays but sent to Barclays for Settlement and Processing
b) Memphis is a system that captures the trades and updates positions and balances
c) Then Memphis books the client trade to BPS 224
d) BPS 224 will submit the COR clearning trade to NSCC
e) BPS 224 will flip the trades to BPS 222 during the EOD batch cycle
f) On the settlement date, settlement will occur between BCI and PLC.

Question 17

Were you hands on?

Answer 17

Yes i was hands on during the SIT testing. My role was to book the trades at the FO systems. For example in done away trades, when the trades were entered, broadbridge transaction ids and status were validated at Memphis.

b) At BPS 224, check for amount, price and security ID
c) PNS reconciliation of the trades internal vs NSCC
d) Performed checks at the MO systems for the trades booked at the FO system

Question 18

Explain the type of defects that were reported?

Answer 18

a) Connectivity issue between Memphis and BPS

b) Trades not received at the Middle Office systems during intra day

Question 19

What was the most challenging aspect of the project?

Answer 19

Working with a larger group of over 50-70 people was one of the challenging aspect with respect to co-ordination and communication but we did a good job of managing and handling the project well