As a loan officer, you’ll help consumers finance the car or house they’ve always wanted. You’ll also work with businesses to increase their access to credit and ability to grow. By analyzing your clients’ current financial status, you can work with them to find the loan options that best fit their needs. To succeed in this field, you must have an interest in personal finance, a hunger for growing your sales numbers and the ability to balance field and office work. If you have the right personality for this career, you can earn six figures a year while helping clients achieve their financial dreams.
Loan Officer Job Duties
As a bank officer, you will have sales, customer service and administrative tasks in your day-to-day workflow. At many financial institutions, you will need to contact potential clients and convince them to come to your bank for their loan needs. This means traveling throughout the company, creating online marketing content and cold calling local businesses. You’ll need to understand your bank’s policies and benefits, speak confidently and build personal connections. You must also provide excellent customer service to everyone you assist. Even if you can’t offer a loan to a business or are only able to offer half of what a consumer requested, you still want to build a long-term relationship. That means being compassionate when letting someone down and looking for other ways to earn their business. Finally, you’ll have to do the clerical work of collecting financial documents, entering them into analytical software and reviewing the reports generated by your efforts. You will also need to fill out loan origination paperwork and keep up-to-date with your company and state’s policies.
Training Needed to Become a Banking Officer
You have many different options for starting your career as a loan writer. If you have substantial experience in business, sales or banking, you can be hired without formal education and given on-the-job training. Alternatively, an undergraduate degree in business, finance or accounting can get you hired without any work experience. If you want to work specifically with home financing and serve your community as a mortgage officer, you’ll need a Mortgage Originator License (MOL). This license requires you to complete 20 hours of coursework and pass a certifying exam. If you’re passionate about finding work as a loan or bank officer, you can take special training courses from vocational schools or banking associations and boost your resume.
Loan Officers Salary
In 2015, the annual median earnings for banking officers was $63,430, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many officers choose to work part-time hours, so their compensation drags down the total earnings. The highest earners make well over $100,000 a year but may have to work nights and weekends to do so. Some employers will give you a set salary, but others will offer commission and bonus incentives to encourage you to keep looking for new clients.
Conclusion
Letting clients know that they’ve been approved for a mortgage, business loan application or low-interest automobile loan is a great feeling. As a loan officer, you’ll get to enjoy that sensation every day.
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