Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank Brings International FinTech Talent Home to Abu Dhabi

Innovative internship program bolsters Abu Dhabi’s status as a world-class centre for finance and innovation

Abu Dhabi, UAE, 26 September, 2019: Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank (AGTB), a global pioneer in digital transaction banking, recently brought a new wave of fresh, creative, and curious financial minds to the world-leading financial hub of Abu Dhabi as part of the company’s inaugural internship program – the first of an ongoing program that aims to nurture hungry young minds in a unique professional environment. 

AGTB hosted a number of undergraduates and postgraduates at its headquarters – based in the world-class Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) financial centre – offering them the opportunity to gain international banking and financial technology experience while adding vitality to the company’s innovative framework and strategy for fresh ideas and talent expansion.

“Since the Bank’s inception, our focus at AGTB has been on redefining the conventions of corporate banking,” said David Henry, Chief of Staff at AGTB. “As we continue to drive towards delivering innovative solutions for our clients, we need to keep challenging ourselves and our approach, and we saw the creation of our internship program as a fantastic way to bring in young talent with a fresh perspective. The internship team we assembled here in Abu Dhabi, consisting of students from four different countries, readily contributed across a number of workstreams and reinforced the value to us of promoting future talent to our business, our sector, and the UAE.”

Mark Collin, Director of Data Strategy at AGTB, said: “When we were designing the internship program for 2019, we were keenly focused on putting a structure in place that would maximise the internship team’s exposure to our business, as well as offering as many outlets for their contribution as possible. We were delighted with the end results as well as how the interns integrated with the rest of our team and were able to add value in a number of key areas of our business.  As we look to next year’s program, we will build on our success of this year as we strive to develop an internationally recognised program that can show future talent what AGTB and Abu Dhabi can offer.”

During the program, interns were immersed in AGTB’s unique learning and working environment where they undertook numerous Special Projects, Secondments, and finance-centric training programs. Raul Riefler, a participant during the AGTB internship program, said exposure to digital-first thinking in an international finance hub like Abu Dhabi was priceless.

“University study delivers students a solid platform for building knowledge in specific areas of interest. However, we don’t always see the full spectrum of how an industry works until we engage first-hand with practical and theoretical learnings in a real world setting. This is why I’m incredibly grateful to have taken part in AGTB’s program. This program has helped give our internship team valuable skills and experience for tackling the challenges that we will face as we embark on our careers.”