Email Etiquettes that an Investment Banker must know

Major chunk of the work profile of an investment banker includes liasoning with clients and top level managers. Communication plays an essential role in this area, and hence one should be upgrade their skills to appear courteous and professional at the same time. In modern era, e-mail is the most popularly used formal mode of communication between two parties. Apart from being a written record of conversations, it is extremely useful for communicating between branches at multiple locations.

Basic General Rules You Should Follow While Drafting an E-mail:

Use Proper Salutation

Address your client and other colleagues with proper salutation as per the protocol used in your organization.

Insert Proper Subject Line

Address your concern in short words, since, most of the time urgency of a mail is judged on the basis of subject line.

Proofread your Content

Haste makes waste, hence, take time to meticulously proofread your content. A poorly written e-mail creates a bad impression on clients and other third parties.

Check Your Recipients’ List

Be careful while inserting receiver’s e-mail id, and avoid putting names of unnecessary recipients. Also, be careful while replying as there are high chances you might hit the send button even before you’ve finished writing the mail.

Cross-border emails

In case you have a client located overseas, study their protocol and culture as usage of some content inadvertently may appear to be insensitive.

Importance of Emails in Investment Banking

• It is imperative for the offshore associate to present a good picture of the captive/third party center as he is the single point of contact between the I bank and the organization for which he works.
• Since there is a continuous client interaction and the job of the offshore associate is to free up as much time of the Analyst as possible, he needs to continuously keep the analyst updated of the results he is getting and also ask for further responsibilities. Everything happens through emails.

 
Let’s go through some examples –

Request for direction from Analyst on given work

When the work starts or when we are given a new assignment, we need to access the requirements and then decide with the analyst the way one should proceed to complete the assignment. So for the first communication when the email thread starts we need to make a request for the direction in which we should proceed.

SAMPLE E-MAIL

Request for permission to data sources.

In certain assignments to complete the work we need access to specific data sources, so as to complete the analysis. Examples of this are the access to financial tools like Bloomberg, Factset, or certain databases related to aviation, mining, etc.

SAMPLE E-MAIL

Request for leave from the Analyst

Asking for a leave is another important communication. The analyst needs to be kept informed about our absence well in advance so that he does not plan any work for us during those times. Thus he can plan accordingly keeping in mind our absence. Generally the analyst is informed 20-25 days in advance if we need a leave. As noticed in above two examples the discussion is kept as brief as possible. This is done as the analysts are very busy and would not have as much time to go through huge emails.

SAMPLE E-MAIL

Request for value added work, like report writing

As any role progresses the quality of work improves. Writing reports is another important activity and comes later in the life cycle of a role. It is like a walk on a tight-rope when we make a request for value added work. One should not sound disinterested in the work already assigned.

SAMPLE E-MAIL

The above rules appear quite easy to follow, however, a small error on your part may result into becoming a big blunder, and make you lose face in front your clients and impact your businesses. On the other hand, a good response on e-mails is likely to boost your business and improve goodwill in the market.