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What does a product controller actually do?

I would be interested in things such as a) will a product controller necessarily work on the trading floor? b) how exactly does a product controller get involved with looking at trades, p&l and trade descrepancies etc ? c) will a pc get involved with control accounts? d) is an accounting qualification is a prerequisite? e) do you have to know each particular product line (ie. fx, equities, fixed income) or can you learn on the job...

Asked by timkashmiri

Posted in Interviews and Accounting

01 Aug 2008

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Answers (3)

  • My experience is in equity derivatives (non-exotic) product control and in answer to your question: a) No, not necessarily. b) The traders execute and trades are booked. These bookings then flow into different systems. The role of a product controller is to perform a reconciliation between the different systems and make sure there aren’t any discrepancies. If there are, these can usually be rectified by asking the traders to re-book. Some banks may work differently to others, but in my experience product controllers don’t perform any in-depth analysis of trades. c) Didn’t have any experience of this so not sure. d) No. e) In my experience, for 99% of the work in product control you don’t need to know anything about financial products. For correcting some of the more troublesome discrepancies, you might need to understand what the trader has done and why, but this can usually be done very quickly either via a quick chat with the trader or by reading a few pages from a good textbook.

    Jonny C 01 Aug 2008

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  • a recruiters response to this question to a naive soon to qualify ACA would be 'its basically like trading and a great route to the front office'...do not be fooled

    pete 01 Aug 2008

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  • Thanks guys. This will help me if I get an interview for a product controller.

    timkashmiri 07 Aug 2008

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