The European Central Bank has launched: Traineeship in the Directorate General Market Infrastructure and Payments – Payments Oversight.

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Your team

Join us as part of the Oversight Division in the Directorate General Market Infrastructure and Payments. All staff in the Directorate General actively contribute to ensuring that Europe's financial markets can rely on safe and efficient market infrastructure, while embracing innovation and contributing to further European integration. Our responsibilities are threefold: we provide payment and securities settlement infrastructure under the TARGET Services brand; we work with the financial sector to promote innovation and the harmonisation of business practices across Europe; and we oversee market infrastructures and payments.

You will be part of the Payments Oversight Section, comprising around 17 members of staff responsible for the oversight of payment systems and payment instruments, card schemes and payment arrangements. This includes the development of the respective oversight policies and frameworks, the assessment of overseen entities against the relevant oversight standards and work to foster the cyber resilience of financial market infrastructures.

We are looking for trainees who are eager to learn by working with others and are not afraid to bring their own ideas to the table. We want enthusiastic and open-minded people who are looking for a traineeship that will give them exposure to a wide range of different roles and tasks in one of the most exciting areas of the ECB.

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 you will work closely with ECB experts and:

• contribute to analytical and/or policy-related projects looking at market infrastructures, their efficiency and interconnectedness, and any systemic risk; 
• participate in monitoring the compliance of payment systems, instruments, schemes and arrangements with oversight standards, and in shaping the EU regulatory framework in the field of payments;
• support cyber resilience initiatives and tools under the Euro Cyber Resilience Board for pan-European Financial Infrastructures (ECRB), the TIBER-EU framework and the overall Eurosystem cyber resilience strategy for financial market infrastructures;
• contribute to briefings, memos, papers and reports on analytical projects and policy topics;
• help prepare presentations to European working groups and committees, the ECB's decision-making bodies and financial market infrastructure providers;
• support the collection, analysis and sharing of data in your area of responsibility and explore new approaches, proposing creative ways to address technical questions.

The position offers you excellent opportunities to learn about financial market infrastructures and contribute to the Eurosystem's tasks in this field. Depending on the team to which you are allocated, you will primarily contribute to ensuring the safety and efficiency of i) systemically important payment systems; or ii) payment instruments, schemes and arrangements; or will mainly contribute to promoting the cyber resilience of financial market infrastructures. 

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 economics, business administration, computer science, auditing, law (with a specialisation in the area of financial markets) or a similar field; 
• a good knowledge of the MS Office package;
• 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: 

• a master's degree in economics, business administration, computer science, auditing, law (with a specialisation in the area of financial markets) or a similar field;
• knowledge of the functioning of financial markets, payment systems or electronic payment instruments;
• awareness of the regulatory frameworks applicable to or otherwise relevant for financial market infrastructures (e.g. the ECB Regulation on oversight requirements for systemically important payment systems, the EU Payment Services Directive and the CPMI-IOSCO Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures);
• experience in drafting reports, briefings or analytical notes in English;
• the ability to present complex content and subject matter clearly and concisely to different audiences;
• experience in working with and analysing large datasets;
• depending on your educational background, working knowledge of data management tools (e.g. MS Excel), statistical packages or programming languages (e.g. Stata, R, MATLAB, VBA, Python) and/or data visualisation software (e.g. Tableau).

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.

Who can apply:

EU nationals eligible for our traineeship programme.

All candidates should:

• be a national of a Member State of the EU or of an acceding country;

• be at least 18 years old;
• have completed at least a first cycle qualification (minimum bachelor's degree);
• be fluent in English and in another official language of the EU.

Following their most recent qualification candidates should:

• have a maximum of 12 months' professional experience;
• have been a trainee for no more than six months;
• not have been an ECB trainee or have worked for the ECB previously.

Closing date: 28.04.2022

Further information

Traineeship of six months initially. This can be extended to a total of 12 months subject to performance and organisational needs.

Application and selection process

Further information on how to join us is available on our website.

The recruitment process for this position will include an online interview and a remote written exercise. 

If you are not selected for this position but are still considered suitable, you will be placed on a reserve list for 12 months from the closing date for applications, from which you might be considered for similar positions within the ECB.