TOH E-lynn
Business & Data Analyst Intern,
Group Technology & Operations
E-Statement Team
(January 2021 – July 2021)
During the first half of 2021, I had the opportunity of interning at UOB GTO (Group Technology & Operations), where I was assigned to the EST (E-Statement) Team. Having established a strong foothold in Southeast Asia, UOB aims to provide quality financial services to valued customers. During the six months of my internship, I was exposed to work scopes of a Business Analyst (BA) and Data Analyst (DA), in which I performed both System Integrated Testing (SIT) and User Acceptance Testing (UAT), as well as to perform data extraction, analysis tasks and automation.
Having just finished my first semester in the Masters of IT in Business (MITB) program’s Financial Technology & Analytics Track, I was very new to the Banking Sector. Wanting to have a better understanding of what were the different departments that kept a bank functioning and what each department did, I decided to do an internship with UOB. It was a perfect opportunity as the team that I was assigned to, had involvements with a wide range of customers. As it was a golden opportunity for me, I wanted to make full use of it, to learn and contribute back to the team. In my team, my colleagues were very helpful, often providing me guidance and imparting useful skills and tips to complete my work more efficiently and accurately. It was definitely a great pleasure to work with my team as my team members not only came from different countries and cultural backgrounds, but they also came from different working backgrounds which gave the team a different working dynamic.
One of the key projects that I worked on during my internship was to use Python to automate the monitoring of issues submitted by various application teams. The aim of the project is to data visualisations to provide a visual outlook for the number of issues submitted by each application team weekly. This project involved a collaboration with multiple application teams and EST Team. Initially it was not easy as it was my first time having to build a solution from scratch, however with the feedback and advice provided by my supervisor and fellow interns, I found myself being able to better understand and contribute to the project in meaningful ways.
Throughout the project, I had the opportunity to design a solution from the start till the end, beginning with data extraction, data cleaning, and data visualisations for monitoring the progress of resolving the issues. Through refining the requirements and undergoing a series of trial runs, we were able to achieve a simple solution that were able to achieve the expected outcomes clearly and quickly.
Another area I was tasked with was to automate a process to ensure that the specifications of the bank document meet those of the bank’s customers and regulatory requirements. By using a series of libraries that were available in Python, a UI interface was created to reduce the need for manual inputs by the user and all the input information could be done on a single UI. As the Python software contained many libraries that could create UI interfaces in the solution, it was a good chance for me to explore and try out different libraries to identify which was the best.
While I was doing this internship, I was also attending MITB lessons in parallel. My work at UOB and the curriculum at MITB complemented each other, supplementing me with the knowledge that I could apply in both areas at the same time. While my lessons gave me in depth understanding into many different data analytics tools and the approaches to take as a data analyst when faced with a data analytics task, it was very applicable to what I was tasked in UOB. The modules I found especially relevant and helpful were Data Analytics Lab and Applied Statistics using R. These modules equipped me with fundamental concepts, which led to me being able to complete my tasks.
Overall, my time at UOB was a challenging, yet equally rewarding experience. My greatest takeaways would be the valuable technical hands-on experience on Python, as well as the conversations and discussions that I engaged in with my team members and supervisors, which have been crucial in helping me to perform my tasks to the best of my abilities. The environment which I was working in, as well as the projects I had been exposed to, have helped me to learn and grow tremendously, and the lessons I have learnt are ones I will carry forward with me on both my academia and working journey.
I extend my sincere gratitude towards my colleagues at UOB, for their thoughtful guidance and great mentorship, specifically to James, Sanjay and the entire EST Team, with whom I have worked closely during this internship. I also extend my thanks to the SMU MITB program, for helping me in securing this opportunity and for their constant concern throughout the internship.
