// EXAM HALL26 QUESTIONS · 30 MINUTES

Bank Marketing Practice Test

How a bank earns, one launch and its advert, one campaign's numbers, and the calls marketing makes where every claim is regulated.

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED 2026-11-02

// THE SHORT ANSWER

A bank marketing practice test asks whether you can read a campaign's numbers, and say what a financial advert may and may not claim. This paper has four parts: how a bank earns and why it is regulated; one launch brief and its advert; one credit card campaign by channel, set on an exhibit, with cost per approved customer, attribution and holdout tests; and calls on endorsements, customer data and green claims. 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 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.

What does it keep on each US$100 lent, before tax?

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. These are the parts that land on marketing's 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 in marketing, reading Exhibit M. The headline says 'The lowest home loan rate in town'.

What is your first question?

BACK TO EXHIBIT M ↑

PART B · QUESTION 8

Exhibit M's headline also says 'Guaranteed approval in 24 hours'.

What is wrong with it?

BACK TO EXHIBIT M ↑

PART B · QUESTION 9

In Exhibit M, the 7.29% reverting rate appears only in the website's small print. The advert shows 5.49% in large type.

What is the honest fix?

BACK TO EXHIBIT M ↑

PART B · QUESTION 10

Take Exhibit M's offer, and suppose the average loan is US$400,000 and the bank's margin on it after funding is 1.8% a year.

How long does the margin take to repay the US$3,000 cashback, before any other cost?

BACK TO EXHIBIT M ↑

PART B · QUESTION 11

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?

BACK TO EXHIBIT M ↑

PART C

The campaign report

One quarter, nine questions. Read past the column the agency wants you to read.

EXHIBIT T · THE CAMPAIGN REPORT

One quarter of a credit card campaign, as the agency reported it.

Spend in US$000. Apps are applications. Each is the cost per approved customer, in US$.
	Spend	Apps	Approved	Each
Search	200	4,000	800	250
Comparison site	150	5,000	500	300
Social	100	2,000	100	1,000
Email	20	1,000	300	67
Total	470	12,000	1,700	276

An approved customer earns the bank about US$600 in the first year, before card losses. Email went only to existing customers. The report credits each application to the last thing clicked. There were 30 complaints about the offer, 24 of them through the comparison site.

PART C · QUESTION 12

In Exhibit T, the comparison site costs US$30 an application and search costs US$50.

Which is cheaper once you look at approved customers?

BACK TO EXHIBIT T ↑

PART C · QUESTION 13

Take social in Exhibit T: 100 approved customers for US$100,000, each earning about US$600 in the first year.

What does it make in year one?

BACK TO EXHIBIT T ↑

PART C · QUESTION 14

Email in Exhibit T costs US$67 per approved customer. The head of digital says: 'Move the budget to email.'

Signal or noise?

BACK TO EXHIBIT T ↑

PART C · QUESTION 15

Exhibit T credits each application to the last thing clicked.

What does that do to the numbers?

BACK TO EXHIBIT T ↑

PART C · QUESTION 16

In Exhibit T, the comparison site's approval rate is 10%: 5,000 applied, and 500 were approved.

What does that tell you?

BACK TO EXHIBIT T ↑

PART C · QUESTION 17

24 of Exhibit T's 30 complaints came through the comparison site. They say the rate advertised was not the rate offered.

What do you do?

BACK TO EXHIBIT T ↑

PART C · QUESTION 18

The finance director reads Exhibit T: 'Stop social.' The brand team says it is a long game and cannot be measured in a quarter.

What do you do?

BACK TO EXHIBIT T ↑

PART C · QUESTION 19

Across Exhibit T, 1,700 customers at about US$600 each come in for US$470,000.

How should the first year's return be stated?

BACK TO EXHIBIT T ↑

PART C · QUESTION 20

For Exhibit T's next round, the agency proposes 'You are pre-approved!' in the email. Customers could still be declined when they apply.

What do you do?

BACK TO EXHIBIT T ↑

PART D

The calls

Claims, data and timing, where the regulator reads the adverts too.

PART D · QUESTION 21

Your bank's honest message for a basic savings account is 'a fair rate, no fees, easy to get at'. The agency proposes 'Watch your money grow like never before'.

What do you do?

PART D · QUESTION 22

The data team can target a credit card offer at customers whose accounts are often overdrawn, because they respond best. It would be your most efficient campaign of the year.

What do you do?

PART D · QUESTION 23

A personal finance influencer offers to feature your savings account for US$5,000, as 'my honest pick'.

What do you do?

PART D · QUESTION 24

The bank's app has been down all day. The social team has a post scheduled for this afternoon: 'Banking that is always there for you.'

What do you do?

PART D · QUESTION 25

An analyst suggests using card transactions to find customers shopping at baby stores, and sending them a family loan offer.

What do you ask first?

PART D · QUESTION 26

A home loan gives 0.1% off for homes with solar panels. The agency proposes 'Banking that saves the planet.' The bank also lends to coal producers.

What do you do?

0 OF 26 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: Marketing manager.

Marketing manager: the interview questions, against a two-minute clock.
Situational judgement, for any seat.
The assessment centre: a whole case in forty-five minutes.

Bank Marketing Practice Test

// THE SHORT ANSWER

The business of a bank

What does it keep on each US$100 lent, before tax?

What does a 5% fall in the value of its assets do to the bank's capital?

What is the best short answer?

Which earns the bank more on its capital?

What happens to its net interest income next year?

Signal or noise?

The launch

EXHIBIT M · THE LAUNCH BRIEF

What is your first question?

What is wrong with it?

What is the honest fix?

How long does the margin take to repay the US$3,000 cashback, before any other cost?

What should happen?

The campaign report

EXHIBIT T · THE CAMPAIGN REPORT

Which is cheaper once you look at approved customers?

What does it make in year one?

Signal or noise?

What does that do to the numbers?

What does that tell you?

What do you do?

What do you do?

How should the first year's return be stated?

What do you do?

The calls

What do you do?

What do you do?

What do you do?

What do you do?

What do you ask first?

What do you do?

// THE REST OF THE ROUND

The Lab.