Entry level jobs in banks are some of the most sought-after positions in the industry. Banks hire entry-level employees to provide front line services and support to customers, maintain and update information systems, and perform other tasks that help keep the bank running smoothly.
The specific duties of an entry level job in a bank will vary depending on the company. Some common tasks include:
*Contacting customers by phone or email
*Processing customer requests for loans or credit cards (including filling out applications)
*Receiving and processing deposits from customers, often using automated teller machines (ATMs)
*Creating reports for use by senior management
Entry Level Jobs In Banks
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans.[1] Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Because banks play an important role in financial stability and the economy of a country, most jurisdictions exercise a high degree of regulation over banks. Most countries have institutionalised a system known as fractional reserve banking, under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, the Basel Accords.
Banking in its modern sense evolved in the fourteenth century in the prosperous cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways functioned as a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the ancient world. In the history of banking, a number of banking dynasties – notably, the Medicis, the Fuggers, the Welsers, the Berenbergs, and the Rothschilds – have played a central role over many centuries. The oldest existing retail bank is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (founded in 1472), while the oldest existing merchant bank is Berenberg Bank (founded in 1590).
Contents
1 History
1.1 Ancient
1.2 Medieval
1.3 Early modern
2 Etymology
3 Definition
3.1 Standard business
3.2 Range of activities
3.3 Channels
3.4 Business models
3.5 Products
3.5.1 Retail
3.5.2 Business (or commercial/investment) banking
4 Capital and risk
5 Banks in the economy
5.1 Economic functions
6 Bank crisis
6.1 Size of global banking industry
6.2 Mergers and acquisitions
7 Regulation
8 Different types of banking
8.1 Types of banks
8.2 Types of investment banks
8.3 Combination banks
8.4 Other types of banks
9 Challenges within the banking industry
9.1 United States
9.2 Loan activities of banks
10 Types of accounts
10.1 Brokered deposits
10.2 Custodial accounts
11 Globalisation in the banking industry
12 See also
13 References
14 Further reading
15 External links
History
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This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2020)
Main article: History of banking
This 15th-century painting depicts money-dealers at a banca (bench) during the Cleansing of the Temple.
Ancient
The concept of banking may have begun in the times of ancient Assyria and Babylonia with merchants offering loans of grain as collateral within a barter system. Lenders in ancient Greece and during the Roman Empire added two important innovations: they accepted deposits and changed money.[citation needed] Archaeology from this period in Iran, ancient China and India also shows evidence of money lending.
Medieval
The present era of banking can be traced to medieval and early Renaissance Italy, to the rich cities in the centre and north like Florence, Lucca, Siena, Venice and Genoa. The Bardi and Peruzzi families dominated banking in 14th-century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe.[2] Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici set up one of the most famous Italian banks, the Medici Bank, in 1397.[3] The Republic of Genoa founded the earliest-known state deposit bank, Banco di San Giorgio (Bank of St. George), in 1407 at Genoa, Italy.[4]
Early modern
Sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694), by Lady Jane Lindsay, 1905.
Fractional reserve banking and the issue of banknotes emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries. Merchants started to store their gold with the goldsmiths of London, who possessed private vaults, and who charged a fee for that service. In exchange for each deposit of precious metal, the goldsmiths issued receipts certifying the quantity and purity of the metal they held as a bailee; these receipts could not be assigned, only the original depositor could collect the stored goods.
Gradually the goldsmiths began to lend money out on behalf of the depositor, and promissory notes (which evolved into banknotes) were issued for money deposited as a loan to the goldsmith. Thus by the 19th century we find “[i]n ordinary cases of deposits of money with banking corporations, or bankers, the transaction amounts to a mere loan or mutuum, and the bank is to restore, not the same money, but an equivalent sum, whenever it is demanded”.[5] and “[m]oney, when paid into a bank, ceases altogether to be the money of the principal (see Parker v. Marchant, 1 Phillips 360); it is then the money of the banker, who is bound to return an equivalent by paying a similar sum to that deposited with him when he is asked for it.” [6] The goldsmith paid interest on deposits. Since the promissory notes were payable on demand, and the advances (loans) to the goldsmith’s customers were repayable over a longer time-period, this was an early form of fractional reserve banking. The promissory notes developed into an assignable instrument which could circulate as a safe and convenient form of money[7] backed by the goldsmith’s promise to pay,[8][need quotation to verify] allowing goldsmiths to advance loans with little risk of default.[9][need quotation to verify] Thus the goldsmiths of London became the forerunners of banking by creating new money based on credit.
Interior of the Helsinki Branch of the Vyborg-Bank [fi] in the 1910s
The Bank of England originated the permanent issue of banknotes in 1695.[10] The Royal Bank of Scotland established the first overdraft facility in 1728.[11] By the beginning of the 19th century Lubbock’s Bank had established a bankers’ clearing house in London to allow multiple banks to clear transactions. The Rothschilds pioneered international finance on a large scale,[12][13] financing the purchase of shares in the Suez canal for the British government in 1875.[14][need quotation to verify]
Etymology
The word bank was taken into Middle English from Middle French banque, from Old Italian banca, meaning “table”, from Old High German banc, bank “bench, counter”. Benches were used as makeshift desks or exchange counters during the Renaissance by Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions atop desks covered by green tablecloths.[15][16]
Definition
The definition of a bank varies from country to country. See the relevant country pages for more information.
Under English common law, a banker is defined as a person who carries on the business of banking by conducting current accounts for their customers, paying cheques drawn on them and also collecting cheques for their customers.[17]
Banco de Venezuela in Coro.
Branch of Nepal Bank in Pokhara, Western Nepal.
In most common law jurisdictions there is a Bills of Exchange Act that codifies the law in relation to negotiable instruments, including cheques, and this Act contains a statutory definition of the term banker: banker includes a body of persons, whether incorporated or not, who carry on the business of banking’ (Section 2, Interpretation). Although this definition seems circular, it is actually functional, because it ensures that the legal basis for bank transactions such as cheques does not depend on how the bank is structured or regulated.
The business of banking is in many common law countries not defined by statute but by common law, the definition above. In other English common law jurisdictions there are statutory definitions of the business of banking or banking business. When looking at these definitions it is important to keep in mind that they are defining the business of banking for the purposes of the legislation, and not necessarily in general. In particular, most of the definitions are from legislation that has the purpose of regulating and supervising banks rather than regulating the actual business of banking. However, in many cases, the statutory definition closely mirrors the common law one. Examples of statutory definitions:
“banking business” means the business of receiving money on current or deposit account, paying and collecting cheques drawn by or paid in by customers, the making of advances to customers, and includes such other business as the Authority may prescribe for the purposes of this Act; (Banking Act (Singapore), Section 2, Interpretation).
“banking business” means the business of either or both of the following:
receiving from the general public money on current, deposit, savings or other similar account repayable on demand or within less than [3 months] … or with a period of call or notice of less than that period;
paying or collecting cheques drawn by or paid in by customers.[18]
Since the advent of EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale), direct credit, direct debit and internet banking, the cheque has lost its primacy in most banking systems as a payment instrument. This has led legal theorists to suggest that the cheque based definition should be broadened to include financial institutions that conduct current accounts for customers and enable customers to pay and be paid by third parties, even if they do not pay and collect cheques .[19]
Standard business
Large door to an old bank vault.
Banks act as payment agents by conducting checking or current accounts for customers, paying cheques drawn by customers in the bank, and collecting cheques deposited to customers’ current accounts. Banks also enable customer payments via other payment methods such as Automated Clearing House (ACH), Wire transfers or telegraphic transfer, EFTPOS, and automated teller machines (ATMs).
Banks borrow money by accepting funds deposited on current accounts, by accepting term deposits, and by issuing debt securities such as banknotes and bonds. Banks lend money by making advances to customers on current accounts, by making installment loans, and by investing in marketable debt securities and other forms of money lending.
Banks provide different payment services, and a bank account is considered indispensable by most businesses and individuals. Non-banks that provide payment services such as remittance companies are normally not considered as an adequate substitute for a bank account.
Banks can create new money when they make a loan. New loans throughout the banking system generate new deposits elsewhere in the system. The money supply is usually increased by the act of lending, and reduced when loans are repaid faster than new ones are generated. In the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2007, there was an increase in the money supply, largely caused by much more bank lending, which served to push up property prices and increase private debt. The amount of money in the economy as measured by M4 in the UK went from £750 billion to £1700 billion between 1997 and 2007, much of the increase caused by bank lending.[20] If all the banks increase their lending together, then they can expect new deposits to return to them and the amount of money in the economy will increase. Excessive or risky lending can cause borrowers to default, the banks then become more cautious, so there is less lending and therefore less money so that the economy can go from boom to bust as happened in the UK and many other Western economies after 2007.
