Vantaggi
Teams with very experienced and hard working people. It used to be a place with proud professionals and the best place to develop ones career and learn from the best. Now it has changed quite a bit. Many of its business areas are very profitable and have longstanding relationships with the most important clients all over the region.
Svantaggi
Very long hours and lots of pressure to reach business targets but with diminishing resources (financial, technological and human capital). Too much control, oversight and scrutiny to all processes and even individual lives, making people feel uncomfortable and under pressure all the time. Silos and continuous power struggles at top management and middle management positions that damages collaboration between teams. Very poor investment in in decent physical working spaces, everything very dated, cramped and uncomfortable. Constant reshuffling of team members and even whole business areas. Matrix reports to different bosses with different agendas, diferent locations and management styles makes it difficult to "please" everybody and achieve the best results. Once it was a great place to develop your career. The fashion has changed drastically. They now prefer attracting people with specific skill-sets and pay big numbers to these people instead of allowing internal candidates to grow and develop within the Bank. There are many internal thresholds, rules and limits to moving up and getting paid better. This has resulted in many experienced people leaving the bank (searching for better opportunities) while at the same time many newcomers being paid lots of money but with some zero knowledge of the Banks processes, teams, culture, etc. This is quite inefficient because it takes a lot of time for the newcomers to adapt and start making a difference, while experienced internals are being pushed out.