How to become Financial Examiner in 2024

Financial Examiner Enforce or ensure compliance with laws and regulations governing financial and securities institutions and financial and real estate transactions. May examine, verify, or authenticate records.

Financial Examiner is Also Know as

In different settings, Financial Examiner is titled as

  • Bank Examiner
  • Bank Secrecy Act Anti-Money Laundering Officer (BSA/AML Officer)
  • Community Reinvestment Act Officer (CRA Officer)
  • Compliance Analyst
  • Compliance Officer
  • Compliance Specialist
  • Credit Union Examiner
  • Credit Union Field Examiner
  • Examining Officer
  • Internal Auditor

Education and Training of Financial Examiner

Financial Examiner is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Financial Examiner

A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.

Education Required for Financial Examiner

Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

Degrees Related to Financial Examiner

Training Required for Financial Examiner

Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Financial Examiner in different industries are

What Do Financial Examiner do?

  • Investigate activities of institutions to enforce laws and regulations and to ensure legality of transactions and operations or financial solvency.
  • Review and analyze new, proposed, or revised laws, regulations, policies, and procedures to interpret their meaning and determine their impact.
  • Plan, supervise, and review work of assigned subordinates.
  • Recommend actions to ensure compliance with laws and regulations, or to protect solvency of institutions.
  • Examine the minutes of meetings of directors, stockholders, and committees to investigate the specific authority extended at various levels of management.
  • Prepare reports, exhibits, and other supporting schedules that detail an institution's safety and soundness, compliance with laws and regulations, and recommended solutions to questionable financial conditions.
  • Review balance sheets, operating income and expense accounts, and loan documentation to confirm institution assets and liabilities.
  • Review audit reports of internal and external auditors to monitor adequacy of scope of reports or to discover specific weaknesses in internal routines.
  • Train other examiners in the financial examination process.
  • Establish guidelines for procedures and policies that comply with new and revised regulations and direct their implementation.
  • Direct and participate in formal and informal meetings with bank directors, trustees, senior management, counsels, outside accountants, and consultants to gather information and discuss findings.
  • Verify and inspect cash reserves, assigned collateral, and bank-owned securities to check internal control procedures.
  • Review applications for mergers, acquisitions, establishment of new institutions, acceptance in Federal Reserve System, or registration of securities sales to determine their public interest value and conformance to regulations, and recommend acceptance or rejection.
  • Resolve problems concerning the overall financial integrity of banking institutions including loan investment portfolios, capital, earnings, and specific or large troubled accounts.
  • Evaluate data processing applications for institutions under examination to develop recommendations for coordinating existing systems with examination procedures.
  • Confer with officials of real estate, securities, or financial institution industries to exchange views and discuss issues or pending cases.
  • Provide regulatory compliance training to employees.

Qualities of Good Financial Examiner

  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.

Tools Used by Financial Examiner

  • 10-key calculators
  • Desktop computers
  • Notebook computers
  • Personal computers

Technology Skills required for Financial Examiner

  • ACL Analytics
  • Auditing software
  • Financial compliance software
  • Financial transaction analysis software
  • General Examination System GENESYS
  • Investigation management software
  • LexisNexis
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Project
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Microsoft Visio
  • Microsoft Windows
  • Microsoft Word
  • NILS INSource
  • ODEN Insurance Services State Rules & Regulations
  • Oversight Insights On Demand
  • Presentation software
  • PricewaterhouseCoopers TeamMate
  • SAP software
  • Spreadsheet software
  • Structured query language SQL
  • System for Electronic Rate and Form Filing SERFF
  • Thomson Reuters Westlaw Edge
  • Web browser software
  • Word processing software