All in a Day's Work

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Paul Phillips, Student Business Officer at Barclays' Bank, lets us into the high-finance world of student accounting. All together now...."Overdrafts are only there as a stop-gap, they are not a gift."

The role of business officer at Barclays' basically involves dealing with whatever students need to have dealt with when they come into the bank. There are three student business officers here, and we all deal with students all day. This can be something as simple as discussing statements or finding out whether wages or cheques have been paid in, right through to overdraft requests. This is what we spend most of our time on. We get people who need overdrafts in the short term, because there has been a delay in a grant cheque arriving for example. But we also get people wanting overdrafts for the longer term too!

I'm always impressed by the differences between people - there are students who get really concerned that they've got a £200 overdraft when they're in the final year of their course, and those who've spent £1000 in the first week of being here.

I've been working at this branch for about a year and a half, but I have worked for Barclays' for about twelve years in all. The job here is very appealing, as you can imagine. It's completely different - very relaxed and a lot less formal than your average banking environment. I like the flexibility, and I like dealing with this age-group, which is different to the huge range of ages you get in a high street bank. In fact, I would say this is the most enjoyable branch I've ever worked in.

One of the reasons I like it so much is that you can really get to know people. You watch them growing up - they come with their parents, all meek and mild, but give them six weeks of being away and they've got pink hair and all-over body piercings . At the end of the three years though, they've grown up and gained their independence. There is a definite human aspect to this job, you get to know the person as an individual and you work out from their circumstances what's best for them. It is definitely the personal side of banking!

I haven't been here long, so I can't really say whether students do more paid work or have more financial worries than they used to. A lot of students do work though, especially in the second year. In the third year, people don't really have time to work any more, so the overdraft tends to go up. This is why we try to encourage people to keep their overdrafts down for the first two years. We definitely recommend that first year overspenders work their socks off over the summer period to get their overdraft cleared before their second year starts.

It's surprising, but on the evidence so far, tuition fees have not had as much of an effect on overdraft requests as we expected. I think that payment of student loans in instalments has helped most new students with budgeting. There is less temptation to go spending-mad than there was when the loan was received in one lump sum. Having said that, the vast majority of students are very responsible, and if they do get into trouble it isn't because they are irresponsible but because money is very tight. Providing someone is honest with us, we will always do our best to bend over backwards to help, because we understand how difficult it is.