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// EXAM HALL22 QUESTIONS · 30 MINUTES

Bank Product Manager Practice Test

What the bank sells, and to whom: where a product makes money, who it lets through by mistake, and how you know a change worked.

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED

// THE SHORT ANSWER

A bank product manager practice test asks whether you can reason from the customer's outcome and the bank's economics at the same time, and name the trade-off. This paper has three parts: what a product earns and what repricing costs; a small-business loan's score bands, losses and complaints, set on an exhibit; and calls on fees, launches, closures, rules that catch the wrong customers, and how you know a change worked. 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 economics

What a product earns, and what it costs to change.

PART A · QUESTION 1

An interviewer says: 'Take a product we sell, and tell me what is wrong with it.'

What makes the strongest answer?

PART A · QUESTION 2

A savings product holds US$500m. Paying 0.25 points more would go to every balance, and bring in US$40m of new money at a 2.75-point margin after the higher rate.

What does the change do to the year's income?

PART A · QUESTION 3

A business keeps US$5m in an account paying 0.5%. The bank's treasury credits the branch 4.0% for that money.

What does the balance earn the bank in a year, before costs?

PART A · QUESTION 4

A US$20m loan. The bank expects to lose 0.5% of it a year on average. It must hold capital equal to 10% of the loan, and its shareholders expect 12% a year on that capital. Funding and running costs are priced separately.

What margin covers expected loss and the return on capital?

PART A · QUESTION 5

A US$10m loan. The bank estimates a 2% chance the borrower defaults within a year, and expects to lose 40% of what is owed if it does.

What is the expected annual loss?

PART B

The product page

One product, eight questions. Read the bands before you read what Sales wants.

EXHIBIT AJ · THE PRODUCT PAGE

You own a small-business term loan with no security, up to US$100,000, decided by a scorecard. Money in US$m. The margin is after funding, and running costs are 1.5% of balances.

Sales wants a new Band D: US$20m of loans at a 9.0% margin, with an expected yearly loss of 12.0%.

The book by score band
BandUS$mMarginYearly loss
A1205.0%1.0%
B606.0%3.0%
C207.0%9.0%
Total200

Complaints this year: Band A 12 from 6,000 customers, Band B 15 from 3,000, Band C 19 from 1,000. A price change needs a platform release six months away. A change to the scorecard's cut-off needs none.

PART B · QUESTION 6

From Exhibit AJ, Bands A to C.

What does the product make in a year?

BACK TO EXHIBIT AJ ↑
PART B · QUESTION 7

From Exhibit AJ. Sales calls Band C 'our best band', as its margin is the highest.

What does Band C make in a year?

BACK TO EXHIBIT AJ ↑
PART B · QUESTION 8

From Exhibit AJ: the new Band D that Sales wants, at its expected loss.

What would it do to the year's result?

BACK TO EXHIBIT AJ ↑
PART B · QUESTION 9

A colleague proposes adding two points to the margin on Exhibit AJ's Band C.

What do you ask first?

BACK TO EXHIBIT AJ ↑
PART B · QUESTION 10

In Exhibit AJ, moving the scorecard's cut-off would stop new Band C lending, with no release needed. Sales says that cuts its volumes by a tenth, and asks you to leave it.

What do you do?

BACK TO EXHIBIT AJ ↑
PART B · QUESTION 11

In Exhibit AJ, Band C has 19 complaints per 1,000 customers, against 2 in Band A.

Signal or noise?

BACK TO EXHIBIT AJ ↑
PART B · QUESTION 12

Suppose Exhibit AJ's Band C closes to new loans. A colleague asks what to do with the US$20m already lent.

What do you say?

BACK TO EXHIBIT AJ ↑
PART B · QUESTION 13

Your paper on Exhibit AJ's Band C goes to the product committee next week.

Whose view do you get before the meeting?

BACK TO EXHIBIT AJ ↑

PART C

The calls

Who wins, who loses, and how you know.

PART C · QUESTION 14

You own a business account. A new US$15 monthly fee would lift its revenue 9%. Your analysis shows the weight falls mostly on the smallest businesses, many of them sole traders.

What do you do?

PART C · QUESTION 15

A new business card is ready. Marketing has booked Monday's launch. Operations tells you the disputes process has not been tested, and that staff have not been trained on it.

Your move?

PART C · QUESTION 16

After your onboarding redesign, applications are up 30%. Completed accounts are flat, and calls to the contact centre about onboarding have doubled. The deck calls it a success.

Signal or noise?

PART C · QUESTION 17

Your largest client wants a bespoke reporting feature. Forty smaller clients have asked for a simpler payment approval screen. You can build one this year.

How do you decide?

PART C · QUESTION 18

An old savings product loses the bank money. It has 1,200 customers, many of them elderly and unlikely to read a letter. The plan is to close it by mail in 30 days.

What do you change?

PART C · QUESTION 19

Branches have escalated 40 declines in three months: seasonal businesses they call sound over a full year, that fail the scorecard's test on the last three months.

What do you ask?

PART C · QUESTION 20

A change to a statement's wording has been tested on 5,000 customers. Complaints fell, nothing else moved, and risk, compliance and operations have signed it off. A director asks for three more months of testing, 'to be safe'.

What do you do?

PART C · QUESTION 21

A product's complaints went from five to seven this month, on volumes a little higher, and the seven have no theme in common.

Signal or noise?

PART C · QUESTION 22

You changed a card's fees. Sales says it worked: revenue is up 6% in the first quarter.

What do you look at before agreeing?

0 OF 22 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: Product manager.