General Information
Type of contract
Traineeship
Who can apply?
EU nationals eligible for our traineeship programme
Grant
The trainee grant is €1,170 per month plus an accommodation allowance (see further information section)
Working time
Full time
Place of work
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Closing date
28.04.2021
Your team
You will be part of the Directorate Finance within the Directorate General Corporate Services. The Directorate Finance is responsible for financial accounting and reporting, while also carrying out planning and controlling activities. It also provides cost accounting, procurement and supervisory fee-related services. You will join one of the three divisions within the Directorate:
Financial Reporting Division
The Financial Reporting Division prepares the financial statements and reports of the ECB and the Eurosystem, performs accounting for the ECB’s financial instruments, and calculates and settles the monetary income of the national central banks (NCBs). We also develop and implement standards and policies for the ECB and the Eurosystem regarding financial accounting and reporting as well as monetary income allocation. Moreover, we advise on accounting and financial reporting matters and respond to external and internal queries on the ECB’s and Eurosystem’s regular financial statements and monetary income. We work closely with several of the ECB’s business areas, including the Directorate General Market Operations, the Directorate Risk Management and the Directorate General Monetary Policy, as well as with NCBs.
Accounting Division
The Accounting Division maintains the ECB’s general ledger, processes incoming invoices from the ECB’s suppliers, issues invoices to be paid by third parties , makes payments, conducts tax activities and maintains the ECB fixed asset accounts, as well as providing policy guidelines for all these areas. We also provide internal system support to all business areas, as well as external system support to procuring vendors, existing vendors and supervised credit institutions.
Budgeting and Controlling Division
The Budgeting and Controlling Division is the finance budget partner of all business areas. We produce the underlying data for budgeting, cost accounting and resource planning and we calculate the supervisory fees. We also collaborate with resource managers across the ECB to determine the necessary human and financial resources to meet their strategic goals and achieve cost stabilisation.
The ECB is an inclusive employer and we strive to reflect the diversity of the population we serve. We encourage you to apply irrespective of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or other characteristics.
Your role
As a trainee in the Financial Reporting Division you will:
- contribute to preparing financial statements and reports of the ECB and the Eurosystem;
- account for the ECB’s market operations and financial instruments (monetary policy, foreign exchange and investment portfolios), perform the related reconciliation process and follow up with the relevant business areas, in particular with Market Operations;
- collect and analyse the NCBs’ balance sheets and other financial data;
- provide analytical and quantitative support to the Division and address financial reporting queries, thereby extracting relevant data from the ECB’s financial information systems and producing analytics for various stakeholders;
- closely interact, cooperate and share knowledge with other ECB business areas and Eurosystem NCBs on various financial accounting and reporting topics;
- support the administration and development of information systems used for the ECB and Eurosystem financial reporting, and contribute to our digitalisation, automation and innovation initiatives.
As a trainee in the Accounting Division, your tasks will include:
- contributing to various regular, non-monetary policy-related accounting processes that include working with ECB SAP components relevant for financial accounting;
- helping to advise purchasing business areas, contractors (creditors or debtors) and other relevant stakeholders on accounting issues;
- supporting the analysis and presentation of accounting data for decision-making purposes;
- contributing to the optimisation and documentation of internal processes and procedures;
- supporting the onboarding and training of new colleagues;
or
- providing functional support for the ECB’s procure-to-pay processes, as well as external system support to e-Tendering bidders/suppliers;
- participating in project implementation (both system and non-system-related);
- performing user access rights maintenance for various SAP modules;
- helping to create user manuals and training materials and to train end-users.
As a trainee in the Budgeting and Controlling Division, you will work on a wide spectrum of operational and policy activities linked to the ECB’s budget and related controlling activities. Your tasks will include:
- supporting planning and regular expenditure monitoring;
- carrying out reporting and forecasting activities;
- supporting regular and specific financial data analysis;
- carrying out financial dashboard activities and IT system-related work;
- supporting the optimisation and monitoring of adherence to organisational compliance frameworks and rules relating to budgeting and controlling;
- enhancing data and knowledge management structures and tools;
- supporting project performance control from a financial perspective.
Our traineeships offer you excellent opportunities to gain insights into the way the ECB works, acquire hands-on experience in the area of finance, and put your theoretical knowledge into practice. You will be part of a multicultural team that strives for continuous innovation to make a positive impact on the lives of European citizens.
Qualifications, experience and skills
Essential:
- a bachelor’s degree or higher in accounting, finance, business or public administration, risk management, statistics, information technology, or another relevant field;
- a good knowledge of the MS Office package, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint;
- an advanced (C1) command of English and an intermediate (B1) command of at least one other official language of the EU, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
Desired:
- advanced knowledge of MS Excel and other tools for data management and analysis;
- working knowledge of other software applications, such as VBA, MS Access, MS Project and data visualisation tools (e.g. Tableau), and enterprise resource planning systems (such as SAP);
- experience in data analysis and the ability to interpret data;
- knowledge of, and some practical experience in, one or more of the following fields:
- accounting/financial reporting;
- financial markets;
- financial instruments;
- financial statement analysis;
- financial risk management;
- information technology for financial applications.
You are curious and eager to learn and want to further develop your ability to analyse complex information. You are keen to collaborate with others, pursue team goals and learn from other people’s diverse perspectives. You strive to know and anticipate stakeholder needs and will signal any need for change and propose alternative solutions.
You are motivated to contribute to the ECB’s mission, to serve the citizens of the EU as a member of a public institution and to work with colleagues from all over Europe. You are keen to be part of our team and to use your skills and competencies to achieve the objectives of this position.
Further information
Traineeship of six months, with the possibility of an extension up to 12 months in total in the same division or in another division or section within the Directorate General Corporate Services.
Envisaged earliest starting date:
- Financial Reporting Division: 1 September 2021;
- Accounting Division: 1 November 2021;
- Budgeting and Controlling Division: 1 January 2022.
A later starting date can be negotiated with the hiring business area.
Application and selection process
Further information on how to join us is available on our
website.
The recruitment process for this position will include a pre-recorded video interview in the pre-selection phase and – if you are invited to participate in the subsequent selection phase – an online interview via Webex.
