Kaoutar Boucetta

Kaoutar.boucetta@abs.igsgroupe.com

Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur (BMCE Agence)- Tanger Ville

21, Boulevard Pasteur

90,000 Tanger

Morocco

Internship Report

Date of Internship: 9th of June to the 8th of August 2014

Submitted: 30/09/2014

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Table of Contents:

Introduction

The Different Banks in Morocco

The Banking System in Morocco

BMCE Bank

BMCE Bank Profile

BMCE Bank’s Strategy

My Experience at BMCE Bank (Tanger Ville)

Conclusion

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Introduction:

If my two-month internship at a bank taught me anything, it is that I do not want to work

in a bank in the future. Do not get me wrong, my internship was indeed very fruitful and I had

the most productive summer of my life since this was my first internship ever. However, I

realized that working in a bank kept a person clung to a daily routine that consists of performing

the same job over again in a strict fashion. The reason I chose to apply for an internship at a bank

in the first place is the fact that I’m majoring in finance and what better way to discover finance

than starting at a bank. I strongly believed that since I haven’t started any finance classes yet,

working at a bank would either strengthen my desire to pursue my career in the finance sector or

open up my eyes to something else.

Although AttijariWafa Bank is the oldest commercial bank in Morocco and the bank that

generates the most capital (ranked 3rd top bank in Africa), I chose to intern at BMCE Bank

(ranked 11th top bank in Africa) because of its continuous expansions around the world and its

keen interest in corporate social responsibility in order to make the Moroccan society advance.

At first, I was supposed to intern at the BMCE Bank headquarters in Casablanca, the largest

business city in Morocco, because I was offered a position at the Department of Touristic

Investments which is found only at the bank’s headquarters. Thus, after discussing my

internship goals with the Director of the BMCE Bank, Mr. Omar Tazi, he made me realize that I

knew nothing about the foundations of a bank. The words he told me still echo in my head, “you

can’t run until you learn how to walk, how do you expect to study an investment file if you don’t

know the requirements to produce that file in the first place?” He then advised me to start by

experiencing the “customer service relationship at the Sales Department ” and the “clientele

operations management sector” and then proceed to the “ Management of Touristic Projects

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Investments”. His advice sounded perfect because in one way I would learn bit by bit and in

another, I would go back to Tangier, my home city, and have my internship there. Therefore, for

one-month and half, I was at the Sales Department and the Customer Service Department and

during my two last weeks I was at the Client Loans and Investment Departments. Throughout my

report, I will explain the various tasks I was given and how they helped me develop an enhanced

idea about the banking system.

The Different Banks in Morocco:

According to the Business Dictionary, “a bank is An establishment authorized by a

government to accept deposits, pay interest, clear checks, make loans, act as an intermediary in

financial transactions, and provide other financial services to its customers.” Although all banks

follow the same policies and regulations made by the government, each bank has its own manner

of generating or maximizing profit and being engaged in corporate social responsibility.

1Bank Name Total Assets 2011US $ bn*

Location

Attijariwafa Bank 40.026 CasablancaBanque Populaire du Maroc 27.662 CasablancaBMCE Bank 24.239 CasablancaBMCI 8.366 CasablancaSociété Générale Maroc 9.347 CasablancaCrédit Agricole du Maroc 3.830 RabatCrédit du Maroc 5.463 CasablancaCrédit Immobilier et Hôtelier 3.934 Casablanca

*Although Attijariwafa Bank is dominating the banking market in Morocco, the other least

dominating banks are facing pure competition among one another.

1 http://www.relbanks.com/rankings/top-banks-in-africa

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The Banking System in Morocco:

The Moroccan banking system is similar to that of France, but not quite as sophisticated.

It is composed of a Central Bank called “Bank Al Maghrib” and about fifteen other commercial

banks that provide a comprehensive range of services. Financing is available from quasi-state

and from private institutions. The Banking Law of April, 1967 dealing with banking and credit

practices was replaced by a law of July, 1993. The law adjoined a national council of surveys

and cash, as well as a committee on credit institutions. The commercial banks in Morocco offer a

broad range of regular banking services such as depository services, trade and credit services.

Several, if not all, banks now offer electronic banking services for corporate clients and a wide

array of consumer banking facilities such as credit cards, ATMs and telephone banking services.

All banks are linked to the SWIFT global payment system, allowing them to immediately

execute foreign currency and convertible Mdh (Moroccan Dirham) transaction to non-residents,

including transactions that involve getting back earnings from foreign companies.

On the other hand, an offshore bank is a legal entity or individual regardless of

nationality whose headquarters are based in an offshore financial location and whose activities

consist of dealing in convertible foreign currency deposits and undertaking with these same

currencies any credits, exchange or financial activity. There are two offshore banks in Morocco

located in the Tangier Free Trade Zone which are not obliged to repatriate any income or foreign

revenues and have complete exchange freedom with regard to their transactions with non-

resident entities. These banks have free access to investment activities in Morocco and to capital

input operations in local corporations. They are exempt from registration fees, VAT, patent and

urban tax as well as all import duties and taxes2.

2 http://www.infoprod.co.il/country/morocc2c.htm

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BMCE Bank Morocco:

Type Joint stockTraded as CSE: 1100Industry FinanceFounded 1959

Headquarters Casablanca, MoroccoKey people Othman Benjelloun, CEOProducts Financial ServicesWebsite http://www.bmcebank.ma/

BMCE Bank was founded in 1959 for the purpose of developing and increasing foreign or

external trade while following and guarding the traditional banking services.

This pie chart demonstrates the redistribution of capital of BMCE among the foreign

shareholders. This also proves that these

shareholders believe strongly in the

development of the BMCE Group

.

Profile of BMCE Bank Group:

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Shareholding Structure

Number of bank agencies 630 (27 business centers

and 1 Corporate Agency)

& 690 ATMs

Business Sector Bank

Date of establishment 01/01/1959

Date of introduction to

the market

16/06/1975

Capital Shares

Headquarter

1 587 513 900, 00. MAD

140, Avenue Hassan II,

Casablanca

President of BMCE Groupe, Mr. Othman Benjelloun

BMCE Bank’s Management within Finance COM :

BMCE Bank’s Strategy:

BMCE Bank, Morocco’s 3rd largest banking group, sustained by a persistently

expanding branch network – three times larger than 10 years ago – has defined its growth

strategy around a number of key objectives. It emphasizes on developing close customer

relations by implementing a regional business model which covers the entire country, a strong

attentiveness on service quality through continuous innovation of its products and services to

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meet the needs of its customers and cooperates with particular subsidiaries to spread out the

Bank’s various business lines.

Through the Transformation program initiated in 2011, the Bank also aims to become

more efficient at the operational and commercial levels given the high level of investment made

over the past decade in human, material and intangible resources in order to support the branch

network’s development. The ultimate objective is to reduce the Bank’s cost-to-income ratio on a

sustainable basis3.

The development of the Group’s business on a sustainable basis rests on attaining

profitable growth, and sound risk management, through regulatory compliance, adopting a

proactive approach to risk management, strengthening internal control procedures and managing

risk effectively at every level within the Group. BMCE Group also functions under the strict

requirements that ISO sets so it can be an accredited enterprise worldwide.

In 2011, BMCE acquired effective control over the Bank of Africa which has operations

over more than 20 countries in Africa. This was done after realizing that some countries in

Africa are now flourishing and investing in their future projects would be beneficial in the long-

term.

In search of greater efficiency, BMCE Bank has decided to merge its two European units

(BMCE Bank International and BMCE International Madrid) under one umbrella company,

BMCE International Holdings. The new entity will share human and financial resources,

enabling it to develop its business in those regions where it can make an impact. By maximizing

synergies between the sites, the new European platform is likely to support the Group’s

development in Africa by providing complementarity to the Bank of Africa network as a niche

player in corporate and investment banking.

3 http://www.bmcebank.ma/front.aspx?SectionId=546

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My Experience at BMCE Bank Tanger Ville:

During my first month at the BMCE Bank, I worked at the Customer Service

Department. The first thing that my internship tutor explained to me was how their bank agency

was divided and the different roles each person occupied in the bank. He explicated to me that

there were three types of bank agencies, which differed in terms of how big the agency was.

TYPE A 1 A.D 6 S.R 3 F.D.O 1 B.O.O.D 1 M.C

1 ATM

TYPE B 1 A.D 2 F.D.O 3 S.R 1 B.O.O.D

TYPE C 1 A.D 1 F.D.O 1 S.R

A.D- Agency Director S.R- Sales Representative F.D.O- Front Desk Officer B.O.O.D-

Back Office Operations Desk M.C- Money Changer

Because the bank I interned in was one of the largest banks in the city (Type A), there

were four main desks that dealt with the customers directly and one “arrière guichet” (back

office operations desk) that basically took care of transfer requests and the handling of checks

(no direct contact with customers). There were also six sales representatives who took care of

opening bank accounts for people, selling the products the bank offers to customers, dealing with

insurance policies etc. Then there were the Front Desk Officers who handled the money coming

in and out of the bank and providing the services the customers asked for when they enter the

bank. At the entrance of the bank, there was a special bureau for the moneychanger whose job

was to deal with customers who wanted to exchange one currency for another. During my first

weeks, I was at the Front Desk Officers Department. The main goal for each F.D.O is that at the

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end of the day, the money that was handed to each one of them in order to perform the services

demanded by the clients, should balance in the system. For instance, if an F.D.O takes 5 million

dirhams from the bank’s vault, all the transactions made by customers (withdrawals, deposits

etc) should add up in the system to either 5 million or more (more, if customers deposit money to

be put on their bank accounts). If by the end of the day, money is missing, the F.D.O is obligated

to pay the missing money from his own pockets. Because I was an intern, I was not allowed to

perform such tasks because interns cannot be held liable for missing money. BMCE Bank

functions with a new program which was adapted from the French banking system called the

“GRC” ( Gestion Relation Clientèle or Customer Relationship Management, in English). People

working at the bank had their own personal code in order to access the system through their

computers. Through this system, they are able to execute the tasks asked of them by the

customers while they are being tracked so at to reduce liability and improve risk management.

The GRC system has many parts to it. For instance, all F.D.Os spend their day using the

TAG process (traitement des activité guichet). When a client comes in and asks for a “règlement

MAD”, the F.D.O would click on the TAG tab-current operations- cash withdrawal and would

enter all the information needed in order to perform the operation. A ‘règlement MAD’ takes

place when someone who has an account at BMCE sends money to another person who doesn’t

have an account at BMCE bank. The F.D.O asks the person for an I.D and checks if the account

owner at BMCE put money as MAD. If so, the F.D.O will credit the owner’s account and give

the money to the other person. At BMCE bank, there is also a Dirham Express service which

enables people to receive money from people living in foreign countries. Using the TAG, an

F.D.O would click on the Dirham Express tab, enter the person receiving the money’s ID number

and address and the amount of money sent and location would pop out. Sometimes, we were

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unable to find the money transferred on the system and that requires us to call the Dirham

Express center in Casablanca in order to verify if any problem occurred during the process. I was

in charge of making the calls most of the times when the clients faced problems receiving their

money through Dirham Express. All workers at BMCE bank spoke both French and Arabic

fluently and all paperwork was done in French since Morocco is a francophone country. When

clients who spoke English came to the bank, I was the one to speak with them and translate what

my colleagues were saying. At first, I was really shy but as time passed by and I became more

comfortable at the workspace, I was eager for English speakers to come so I can be helpful to my

colleagues and feel needed. My colleagues even started asking me to teach them several words

that would help them deal with customers on a daily basis. It was a win-win situation. They

would teach me the principles of a bank and I would teach them English.

The F.D.Os were also in charge of the GAB (guichet automatique bancaire or the ATM).

Every morning, before the bank opens its doors for its clients, the ATM machine is supposed to

be checked. A specific and detailed processed if supposed to be followed when verifying the

status of the ATM. First, the ATM is to be set on mode “supervisor”. Secondly, the ticket of the

cassettes’ status is edited. Then, a machine prints out the ATM’s status and all the transactions

that took place including the credit card number, the time, the amount of money withdrawn and

the type of bills handed to the clients. The F.D.O then counts the cash that is left in the cassettes

and reports the amount on the register. Finally, money is then placed in the cassettes again, after

being counted, and are placed in the ATM.

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