Lincoln Investment
During this past summer, I was the computer operations intern at Lincoln Invesmtnet Planning in Wyncote, PA. I worked closely with the computer operations supervisor to complete daily tasks on the IBM AS400 system.
Lincoln is a financial broker-dealer which specializes in various investments. A large portion of their business comes from teachers investing in a 403(b) account. Lincoln was one of the first companies to sell this type of product to school teachers (who generally have pensions). However, it is important to note that the firm is a broker-dealer. Therefore, Lincoln does not have a great deal of direct involvement with the investor like a company like Vanguard may have even though they are very similar types of firms. Lincoln is different because an investor must go through a financial representative in order to invest money through Lincoln. Lincoln has grown quite a bit and is at a point where it is in the top 30 largest broker-dealers in the country. The company has grown through various acquisitions and releasing new products, which is set to double within the next few years.
Today, there are many firms that have a heavily automatized ERP system, but there are also a large number of companies which use other, older technology. Lincoln is currently using an IBM AS400 system to handle a lot of the technology side of its business. My role was ultimately to help maintain this system and operate it on a daily base. For example, every day there was financial data that needed to be pulled and processed by the AS400 system. However, in order to get the files and begin processing it, there were manual commands that needed to be entered. Throughout the summer, I learned the process by which data is processed using this system. Additionally, I learned a great deal about the financial services industry because this system was one that tied the entire business together. Finally, I was given various tasks to do throughout the summer. Some needed to be done on a daily base, such as preparing backup tapes from the AS400 and NAS systems for offsite pick up, while others were not done every day such as adding a new user to the AS400 computer system. Ultimately, this experience was an excellent one because it taught me a great deal of skills as well as taught me a great deal about the financial services industry!