Jobs with Banks - What’s Available and (free business websites) What You Need

September 4th, 2008 admin Posted in finance |

By john mce

Banks can be great places to start a career. Here’s 3 jobs available in the banking sector which may help you find the job you’ve always dreamed of.

Customer Service Advisor

As a customer service advisor or cashier, you are the first point of contact for a bank’s customers. That’s either in branches serving customers, or in ‘contact centres’, answering telephone calls and emails.

You would process payments and withdrawals, deal with general enquiries, sell financial products and services, update computerised account details, issue foreign currency, help customers with applications and carry out more general administrative duties.

Employers will generally ask for four or five GCSEs, including English and Maths for these kinds of positions, although many have their own entry exams upon application. Experience of customer service and handling cash is an advantage, as are basic computers skills and office experience.

Mortgage Adviser

Mortgage Advisers help customers find, understand and apply for suitable mortgages. If you worked for a bank or building society you would only be selling your own mortgage products. As an estate agent or mortgage broker you would offer mortgage products from a range of providers.

You would advise customers about the home-buying process, assessing their finances, explaining the different kinds of mortgage products, helping with the application, explaining elements of them and selling other related financial services. Your role may come with sales targets and requires a constantly updated knowledge of the products and the law.

There are strict sets of guidelines laid out by the Financial Services Authority regarding selling the financial products, acting fairly and giving the correct advice.

Communication skills and experience in customer service, sales, or financial services are considered more important than educational qualifications for this role. During your training and career development you would obtain FSA-approved qualifications.

Financial Adviser

As a financial adviser, you would help clients to choose between financial products and services, such as investment opportunities, savings, pensions, mortgages and insurance. There are three ways of working; tied, multi-tied, and independent.

Tied means working for a bank of building society and only offering their products and services, Multi-tied means selling services from a selection of companies, and independent means you offer advice on the whole of the market.

Your duties would involve setting up meetings with clients, finding out about their financial situation and future plans, researching financial products, explaining these products to the clients to help inform their decisions, meeting sales targets, keeping records, producing financial reports, updating clients, keeping up to date with the market and the law.

There are strict rules set out by the Financial Services Authority to ensure you act fairly and are properly qualified to give financial advice.

Again, communication skills, ‘people skills’ and a background in customer service, sales or financial services can be more important than educational qualifications. The normal promotion route would lead from a customer service role to a tied adviser after achieving a FSA-approved qualification.

John McE writes on behalf of Commercial Finance People, a financial recruitment consultancy, which was established in 1998 to place candidates in asset finance jobs, invoice finance jobs and banking jobs

What Are the Natural Stages For Creating Financial Freedom?
By Ann Marosy

There are typically 6 stages in the development of any endeavour. Successful businesses follow this - and they can easily be converted into personal finance terms. In fact, running your personal finances like a mini business will ensure your way to creating lasting financial freedom.

The stages consist of:

1 Beginning your endeavour

2 Correction of any teething problems

3 Establishing a strong foundation to build upon

4 Reviewing and revising your performance to date

5 Exercising restraint during your first boost of expansion

6 Managing your long-term success

Converted into Personal Finance terms, this includes:

Stage 1 - Planning and establishing goals, budgets, and ‘knowing your finances’.

Stage 2 - Identifying your problem areas (for example, spending patterns) and making corrections to your behavioural patterns.

Stage 3 - Start a savings and investments and debt-free program

Stage 4 - Reviewing your performance to date, but still keep economising.

Stage 5 - Reinvest all surplus money back into your investments to create assets that will eventually create your financial freedom.

Stage 6 - Ensuring that you don’t go back into any unnecessary debt, and not fall back into bad patterns. Success is now yours to have and to hold!

This is not a new idea - it’s been around for centuries, and even more recently, researchers have found other ways to apply these techniques. For example, Dr John Gray said when studying the behavioural patterns of couples, he noticed the same stages of developing a successful relationship, which he later wrote about in his book, “Mars and Venus on a Date”.

It has also been proven that if you rush through or skip a stage, you are doomed to failure or at least have to return back to the start again. If your finances never get off the ground, so to speak, then you have to go back to the first 3 stages to lay the right foundations to ensure lasting wealth and financial freedom.

There are different strategies for the different stages. If we apply the right strategies at the right time, creating wealth is effortless. If we are not aware of the stages and break the rules, we can experience financial problems and possibly severe hardship.

What often prevents us from successfully managing money is the ignorance of these important stages. If we apply the right strategies at the right time, creating wealth is effortless.

Understanding these six natural stages provides us with a systematic tool that, firstly, corrects any existing problems and, secondly, accelerates our path to financial freedom.

Ann Marosy is an accountant, consultant, and former university lecturer. She was formally a Financial Controller of a Fortune 500 Company, and Finalist of SA Executive Woman of the Year.

Ann is the author of ‘The Money Program’ book series, which includes managing the stages of wealth creation, formulas for budgeting, debt-free program and investment strategies. Visit: The Home of The Money Program

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