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// EXAM HALL24 QUESTIONS · 30 MINUTES

Bank Operations Practice Test

Capacity and cut-offs, one afternoon's exceptions queue, and the calls about how a process should work.

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED

// THE SHORT ANSWER

A bank operations practice test asks whether you can keep accuracy and throughput together, and what you do with the item that does not fit. This paper has three parts: workloads, cut-offs and error rates; one afternoon's exceptions queue set on an exhibit; and calls on process maps, requirements and root causes, which also serve business analysts. Every question is original, and none comes from any bank's test. Sit it against a thirty-minute clock with the reads held to the end, 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 numbers

How a processing team knows whether it will make the day.

PART A · QUESTION 1

A team processes 12,000 payments a day. 3% fall out as exceptions, and each takes about 6 minutes to clear.

How many hours of exception work is that a day?

PART A · QUESTION 2

The same team's straight-through rate rises from 97% to 98.5%. Nothing else changes.

What happens to the exception workload?

PART A · QUESTION 3

Volume doubles tomorrow, for one day. Your team clears 400 items an hour, and on a normal day starts at 9:00am and finishes at 3:00pm. The cut-off is 4:00pm.

How many items miss the cut-off, if nothing changes?

PART A · QUESTION 4

A payment must reach a bank in Singapore by its 5:00pm cut-off. Your clock is five hours ahead of Singapore's, and your own system needs 30 minutes.

What is your latest send time, on your clock?

PART A · QUESTION 5

Team 1 handled 40,000 items with 20 errors. Team 2 handled 8,000 with 8 errors, and has just been given the more complex items.

How do the error rates compare?

PART A · QUESTION 6

A reconciliation shows 200 open items. 150 are under three days old and total US$40,000. 5 are over 90 days old and total US$900,000. The rest are in between.

What do you look at first?

PART B

The queue

One afternoon, ten questions. The seat is tested on the item that does not fit.

EXHIBIT K · THE QUEUE

It is 3:05pm in a bank's payments team. There are two of you on the exceptions queue, and each item takes about 20 minutes. Figures in US$.

ItemWhat it isValueCut-off
1A client's payroll file, rejected for a format error.450,0003:30pm
2A customer's payment, held on a possible match to a sanctions list.2,400,0004:00pm
3A possible duplicate: same payee, amount and reference as a payment sent 40 minutes ago.86,0004:00pm
4The bank's own settlement account will be short at the close of settlement.1,200,0003:45pm
5A customer asks to recall yesterday's payment, sent to the wrong account.12,000none
6A typing error in a payee's address.3004:00pm
PART B · QUESTION 7

From Exhibit K, at 3:05pm.

What do the two of you start on?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑
PART B · QUESTION 8

Exhibit K: two people, 20 minutes an item, from 3:05pm. The last cut-off is 4:00pm.

How many items can you finish by 4:00pm, and so what?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑
PART B · QUESTION 9

On Exhibit K's item 2, the client's relationship manager rings: 'It is just a similar name. I have known them for ten years. Release it, or they lose the deal.'

Your answer?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑
PART B · QUESTION 10

On Exhibit K's item 3, the second payment of US$86,000 has not yet been released. It has the same payee, amount and reference as one sent 40 minutes ago.

What do you do?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑
PART B · QUESTION 11

On Exhibit K's item 4, the bank's own settlement account will be US$1.2m short by 3:45pm.

Who do you call, and why that fast?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑
PART B · QUESTION 12

On Exhibit K's item 1, you can see the problem: one column is in the wrong format. A colleague offers to correct the client's file and resubmit it, as it would take only a minute.

What do you do?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑
PART B · QUESTION 13

Exhibit K's item 5: the customer sent US$12,000 to the wrong account yesterday. 'It is your system,' they say. 'Just take it back.'

What do you tell them?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑
PART B · QUESTION 14

It is 3:25pm in Exhibit K. Items 1 and 4 are in hand, your colleague has item 2, and you can finish one more before 4:00pm: item 3 or item 6.

Which do you take?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑
PART B · QUESTION 15

The client's corrected payroll file in Exhibit K arrives at 3:33pm, three minutes past the cut-off. The finance manager pleads: 'It is 200 people's wages.'

What do you do?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑
PART B · QUESTION 16

The next morning you notice that Exhibit K's client has had the same format error on three files this quarter. The team fixed each one in time.

What do you do?

BACK TO EXHIBIT K ↑

PART C

The process

How a process really works, how to change it, and how you know the change worked.

PART C · QUESTION 17

You are mapping a loan-servicing process for a change. The procedure manual shows nine steps. A team member mentions, in passing, a spreadsheet the manual does not.

What do you do?

PART C · QUESTION 18

Sales wants loan approvals in an hour. Credit wants every file to keep its full manual review. Both have written to you as the business analyst, and each asks for your support.

What do you do?

PART C · QUESTION 19

You have four draft requirements for a payment screen. An engineer will build from whichever you write.

Which can be built and tested without guessing?

PART C · QUESTION 20

A change automates early loan repayments. Everyone is happy with the normal case. You are asked to sign off the requirements tomorrow.

What do you ask?

PART C · QUESTION 21

For the second time in a month, staff keyed a payment with the wrong currency. The team leader's plan: a reminder email and a note in the two people's files.

What do you do?

PART C · QUESTION 22

You can automate one step this quarter. Step 1 takes the most hours but runs well. Step 2 is small but causes most errors and rework. Step 3 is the team's least favourite.

Which do you look at first?

PART C · QUESTION 23

A 'temporary' manual workaround was added during a system change two years ago. It still runs every day, done by one person, and no one has tested it since.

Signal or noise?

PART C · QUESTION 24

After your change, average handling time fell 20%. The sponsor wants to announce success. Customers' repeat calls about the same issue have risen.

What do you say?

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: Operations analyst, Business analyst.