A Day In The Life Of A LATAM Foreign Exchange Sales Analyst At Global Bank

My day really depends on the area I was assigned for that six-month period. I'd like to talk about my day in corporate sales, as I found it to be the most dynamic area.

I needed to be there 30 minutes before the market opened to research any news that could potentially impact the exchange rate. This included news not only from Peru but also from Latin America and the US.

The market was open from 8:30 AM to 1:30 PM. During this time, we were in the market offering clients the current exchange rate. A client might contact us via Bloomberg or another platform.

For example, a client might say, "I want to sell $5 million. What's your exchange rate?" Typically, clients would put us in competition with other banks. We would offer a rate, and then the client would accept or decline.

As a salesperson, not a trader, I first had to talk simultaneously with the trader. I would tell them, "I have an operation where the bank is selling $5 million." The operation I presented to the trader needed to be the opposite of what the client was doing.

The trader would give me a price, and then I would add a spread to that price. This spread would depend on the client and the size of the transaction. Then, hopefully, we would close the transaction.

Once a transaction was closed, the operations team would handle sending money to the client and receiving money from the client. This process continued until 1:30 PM.

After the market closed, we would work on additional projects. These could be projects to improve efficiency, enhance security for transactions, or any other projects we had. These projects would typically start around 2:00 PM and continue for the rest of the day.

This work was done outside of market hours because when the market was open, my primary focus was on making sales.