PART A · QUESTION 1
A bank pays 3% on deposits and lends them out at 6%. Its running costs are 1.5% of its loans, and it expects to lose 0.3% of them a year.
// EXAM HALL24 QUESTIONS · 30 MINUTES
Bank HR Practice Test
How a bank earns, one sales incentive, one team's bonus round, and the calls a people partner gets when the top earner is the problem.
BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED
// THE SHORT ANSWER
A bank HR practice test asks whether you can hold a line on pay and conduct when the top earner is the problem. This paper has four parts: how a bank earns and why it is regulated; one product's sales incentive; one team's bonus round, set on an exhibit, with deferral, conduct and protected leave; and calls on references, redundancy, whistleblowers and leavers. It tests judgement, and not the employment law of any one country. Every question is original, and none comes from any bank's test. Sit it against a thirty-minute clock, or take it as practice.
BASIS Practitioner judgment from sixteen years in commercial banking, set out in How Bankers Think (Highbank Press, 2026). Every borrower on this site is a composite constructed for teaching, not a client. The market is mid-market commercial lending as practised in New Zealand and Australia; where a convention differs elsewhere, the page says so.
// HOW TO SIT IT
Answer below as practice, and each read opens as you go. Or sit it as a test: 30 minutes, with every read held back until you finish.
PART A
The business of a bank
What you are joining, whichever seat you sit in.
PART A · QUESTION 2
A bank has US$100 of assets and US$8 of capital. A retailer with the same assets might have US$40 of capital.
What does a 5% fall in the value of its assets do to the bank's capital?
PART A · QUESTION 3
A friend asks why a bank has so many rules compared with a supermarket. Both have customers, suppliers and shareholders.
What is the best short answer?
PART A · QUESTION 4
Two loans earn the same margin. One is a company loan that needs three times the capital of the other, a well-secured home loan.
Which earns the bank more on its capital?
PART A · QUESTION 5
A bank's loans reprice every five years on average; its deposits reprice within one. Rates rise by one percentage point tomorrow.
What happens to its net interest income next year?
PART A · QUESTION 6
A bank's deposits have been steady for years. This month, after a rival's failure made the news, online withdrawals doubled in two days.
Signal or noise?
PART B
The launch
The launch brief every function in the bank sees. This is the part that lands on your desk.
EXHIBIT M · THE LAUNCH BRIEF
A retail bank plans a home loan offer. This brief has reached your desk, whichever seat you sit in. It launches on Friday week.
| Area | What the brief says |
|---|---|
| Offer | US$3,000 cashback on new home loans over US$300,000, at 5.49% fixed for the first year. |
| Advert | Headline: 'The lowest home loan rate in town. Guaranteed approval in 24 hours.' Below it, 5.49% in large type. On the website only, in small print: after year one the rate reverts to 7.29%. |
| Terms | The whole cashback must be repaid if the loan ends within three years, for any reason. |
| Sales | Bankers earn US$150 for each loan written. The scheme has no measure of file quality or complaints. |
| Supplier | A call centre abroad will take enquiries and hold 400,000 customer records. Its price is 18% below the next bid. The contract runs five years, renews itself, and gives the bank no right to leave. |
PART B · QUESTION 7
You are a people partner. In Exhibit M, bankers earn US$150 per loan, with no measure of file quality or complaints.
What do you push for?
PART B · QUESTION 8
In Exhibit M, four teams have concerns: marketing's claim, legal's term, the incentive and the supplier. The launch is a week off, and the product head says: 'Nobody has said no.'
What should happen?
PART C
The bonus round
One team, nine questions. Read the breaches and the complaints before you read the bonuses.
EXHIBIT S · THE BONUS ROUND
One relationship team's year, as it goes to the bank's remuneration committee.
| Rev | Breaches | Complaints | Bonus | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 900 | 3 | 4 | 180 |
| B | 600 | 0 | 0 | 60 |
| C | 500 | 0 | 1 | 50 |
| D | 400 | 1 | 0 | 40 |
| E | 300 | 0 | 0 | 30 |
| F | 300 | 0 | 0 | 40 |
| Team | 3,000 | 4 | 5 | 400 |
Breaches are conduct or credit-policy breaches logged this year. Complaints are from clients. The scheme defers 40% of anything above US$50,000 for three years, and a deferred amount can be cut if a problem comes to light. E was on parental leave for four months.
PART C · QUESTION 9
From Exhibit S. Look at banker A against the whole team.
What does A take, against what A earned?
PART C · QUESTION 10
The head of Exhibit S's team proposes A's US$180,000 despite three breaches. 'Revenue is what pays for everyone here.'
What do you do?
PART C · QUESTION 11
Exhibit S's scheme defers 40% of anything above US$50,000. Take A's proposed US$180,000.
How much is deferred?
PART C · QUESTION 12
In Exhibit S, E and F each brought in US$300,000. E was on parental leave for four months and is down for US$30,000; F is down for US$40,000.
What do you check?
PART C · QUESTION 13
Exhibit S's A says a competitor has offered to buy out their deferred bonus. The team head says: 'Give them a two-year guarantee.'
What do you do?
PART C · QUESTION 14
D's one breach in Exhibit S was a concern about a client escalated late. D raised it themselves, and nobody else had noticed.
How should it count?
PART C · QUESTION 15
In Exhibit S, A has four client complaints, all about being sold something they did not understand.
Who has to act on that?
PART C · QUESTION 16
Compare A and B in Exhibit S. A has three breaches and four complaints. B has neither.
What does each earn in bonus per dollar of revenue?
PART C · QUESTION 17
The team head asks you to drop Exhibit S's breaches and complaints columns before it goes to the committee. 'They only distract people.'
What do you do?
PART D
The calls
Hiring, leaving, and what a bank's regulators expect of both.
PART D · QUESTION 18
Your bank's top-earning banker has been rude to junior staff for years. Two have left, and a third has made a complaint. The division head says: 'That is just how the best ones are.'
As people partner, what do you do?
PART D · QUESTION 19
A leader wants to hire quickly for a credit team, and asks you to skip the reference and conduct checks for someone they have worked with before: 'I can vouch for them.'
What do you do?
PART D · QUESTION 20
A senior hire needs a fitness check under the bank's regime for senior roles. Their last employer's reference gives only dates and a job title.
What do you do?
PART D · QUESTION 21
A restructure removes 12 roles out of 40. The manager's list is mostly people who have raised concerns or recently taken leave.
What do you do?
PART D · QUESTION 22
An employee has made a whistleblowing report about their manager. The manager comes to you: 'Someone has reported me. Who was it?'
What do you say?
PART D · QUESTION 23
A trader resigns to join a competitor, with three months' notice. Their manager wants them to keep working 'so that we get the handover'.
What do you raise first?
PART D · QUESTION 24
The operations head wants to announce 200 job cuts 'because of AI', before the new tool has been proved on live work.
What do you advise?
0 OF 24 ANSWERED · 0 WITH THE SENIOR READ · 0 STANDS UP · 0 OFF THE LINE
// THE REST OF THE ROUND
Every question here is original; none is any bank's real test. Written for: People partner.
- People partner: the interview questions, against a two-minute clock.
- Situational judgement, for any seat.
- The assessment centre: a whole case in forty-five minutes.
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