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// DIAGNOSTICS / FINANCE, TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS
5 QUESTIONS · 7 MINUTES · NO SIGNUP

Interview Quiz: Finance, Technology and Operations

FIVE QUESTIONS · FOUR ANSWERS EACH

They also hire on their own discipline first: an engineer is interviewed as an engineer, an accountant as an accountant. Banking is the second question, not the first. These five questions are that second question, asked of five seats — an engineer, an accountant, an operations analyst, a procurement manager and a people partner. None of them tests the discipline itself. Pick the answer closest to yours; the senior interviewer's read follows each one.

5 questions · ~7 minutes · No signup, no email required

// FOUR BLOCKS, FOUR QUIZZES

A bank hires in four blocks, and each block's panel asks different questions. This one is yours.

// THE FIVE QUESTIONS IN THIS ROUND

The four answers to each, and the senior interviewer's read of every one, open when you start.

  1. 01 · What happens to the money while your service is down?

    The last round for an engineering seat on the payments platform. The first hour was the engineering, and it went well. The final interviewer is from the payments business, and asks one question: the service you would own sends business customers' outgoing payments, and it goes down for most of an hour in the middle of a weekday. What happens to the money?

    ASKED FOR · Software engineer

  2. 02 · How would you handle a judgemental provision you disagree with?

    Half-year close. The expected-credit-loss model produces a provision for a large business borrower, and the credit team has added a judgemental overlay that takes most of it away: the borrower has banked here for decades and, they say, always comes through. You have read the file. Its last two covenant tests were waived, and its debtor days have lengthened every quarter.

    ASKED FOR · Financial accountant

  3. 03 · The item does not fit the procedure. Now what?

    You work in loan servicing. A business customer's monthly loan repayment has failed three months running. Each time it was presented again by hand a few days later and went through, so each month the case was closed as paid. The procedure covers a failed payment. It does not cover one that keeps failing and then succeeding. It is the fourth month, and the payment has just failed again.

    ASKED FOR · Operations analyst

  4. 04 · Our critical supplier is in trouble. What do you do?

    A supplier runs a service the bank could not operate without for more than a few days. Its latest accounts were filed late, two of its senior people have left, and its largest other customer has just moved to a competitor. The contract has years to run, with strong service levels and penalties.

    ASKED FOR · Procurement manager

  5. 05 · How would you design an incentive that does not create a conduct problem?

    A business lending team wants a new incentive plan. The head of the team says the current one is too complicated and nobody knows what they are paid for. They want something simple: pay the bankers for the new lending they write.

    ASKED FOR · People partner