Careers at the OCC:
Experienced Bank Examiner Careers

To effectively supervise large banks, the OCC often needs to hire experienced banking specialists for strategic roles. Do you have 5 to 15 years experience working in a bank, financial services industry, or regulatory agency? Have you established an area of expertise in the banking arena? If so, then you may be interested in leveraging your experience by taking a position as a bank examiner focused on a specialized area, such as asset management, capital markets, compliance, credit, and others. The OCC offers these experienced workers an opportunity to serve the country, competitive salaries, flexible work schedules, excellent benefits, and stable employment.

Examiner Jobs in Headquarters

Some experienced examiners are stationed in the OCC's Washington, D.C., office near the U.S. Capitol. These examiners act as liaisons with other financial regulatory agencies and are expert contributors to agency policies, procedures, speeches, and testimony.

Examiner Jobs in Large Banks

Most experienced bank examiners typically work in cities that are the headquarters location of large national banks.

Supervision of large banks entails examining some of the world's most complex banking companies, which generally operate over wide geographic areas. Examiners develop and expand their skills in a variety of businesses and product lines. These examiners often interact with bank personnel who are experts in their business fields, thus our examination staff work full-time in the large banks. Oversight for Large Banks is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Mergers, acquisitions, and conversions to national banking charters open opportunities for specialized recruiting in particular areas in the financial marketplace. Last year the OCC placed more than 100 experienced bank examiners at three major banks in New York City and the OCC New Jersey field office. Those moves created other job opportunities throughout the OCC.

Experienced examiners also work in the following specialized areas:

Asset Management

Asset management activities include traditional trust services (personal trust, estate settlement, employee benefit, and corporate trust), retail brokerage, private banking, securities lending, investment advisory and management services, investment company services, custody and security-holder services, and insurance activities. Asset management specialists must be familiar with those activities and pertinent laws and regulations, including applicable state and national banking laws and regulations, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, Securities and Exchange Commission regulations and rulings, and the Internal Revenue Code.

Bank Information Technology (BIT)

BIT examiners must stay on top of trends that relate to bank operations and information systems management. The systems in a bank drive core processes and are key to bank successes. BIT examiners analyze and synthesize volumes of technical data and make formal presentations on technical material. BIT examiners ensure that risks are appropriately identified, measured, monitored, and controlled for all areas of bank operations.

Examiners enjoy working in Bank Information Technology because they are continuously exposed to new products and changing environments. This continuous change keeps them interested, alert, and mindful of the need to continue learning.

International

International examiners have advanced technical, analytical, and communication skills, and provide strong leadership in implementing highly complex international policy initiatives. Rewards of a career in this area include traveling to foreign countries, interacting with foreign supervisors, expanding breadth and depth of knowledge, developing leadership capabilities, and expanding a sphere of influence within and outside the OCC.

Capital Markets

Capital Markets examiners oversee risks and management-control processes across a broad array of financial products and activities. Examiners commonly associate these with traditional asset/liability management areas, such as interest rate risk, investments, and liquidity. The goal of the examiners is to ensure that risks are appropriately identified, measured, monitored, and controlled. When weaknesses are found, examiners make recommendations and ensure that management takes corrective action.

Compliance

Compliance examiners apply audit techniques to determine how well financial institutions comply with appropriate laws and regulations. They look for patterns or irregularities that require further review to determine the need for controls over suspicious monetary activity, indicate the possibility of discriminatory or predatory lending practices, and determine the level of CRA performance. They focus on protecting consumers, whether their area of inquiry is bank secrecy/anti-money laundering, predatory or fair lending, community reinvestment, or compliance with consumer laws and regulations. Compliance examiners are true consultants and problem solvers, often advising banks on ways to serve their customers better. They also represent the OCC in bankers' forums and with community groups.

Credit

Examiners in credit positions evaluate the adequacy of major credit processes, such as loan origination and underwriting; portfolio management activities including loan sales, syndications, and credit derivative strategies; ALLL including expected loss models; loan review; and remediation. In addition, examiners analyze loan portfolios by industry, line of business, and/or geography. Their work encompasses onsite examinations and ongoing supervisory activities. They discuss specific risk concerns, provide creative and penetrating arguments that influence senior management to control high risks, and monitor implementation of corrective action. They prepare written conclusion reports, formal supervisory strategies, and quarterly risk assessments that align with high-risk areas.

Retail Credit

Retail banking is an excellent career-development opportunity, full of challenge as the business expands in scale and complexity. Retail credit blends old fashioned, five-Cs credit sense with sophisticated models that replicate the five-Cs. OCC deploys specialist-trained and generalist examiners in this field, and develops a pipeline of trained examiners at all levels by providing first-class external training, along with internal training, mentoring, and developmental assignments.