How to get an operations job in banking and finance

• Operations deals with the core “plumbing” systems upon which the financial services business relies.
• Operations jobs are dedicated to ensuring the efficiency and the accuracy of each element of a transaction.

Operations jobs have traditionally been seen as less prestigious than the “front-office” client-facing jobs like M&A or sales and trading. However, this is an increasingly outdated way of thinking about how banks work.

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Rodney Sunada-Wong, a former chief risk officer at Morgan Stanley’s broker dealer business, says banks are like a human organism. In Sunada-Wong’s schema, senior management, risk and finance are the brain. Salespeople, traders, and investment bankers are the muscles. Technology is the skeleton and bones. Treasury is the lungs. And the operations division is the heart and circulatory system.

“All the parts have to work together,” says Sunada-Wong. “The better and more efficient your operations, the more profitable, and efficient your bank will be.” Banks increasingly recognize this, and getting operations right is increasingly important for profitability.

The nature of your job in operations will depend upon the area of the banking business that you support. For example, if you work in securities operations and support the trading floor your role will involve the settlement, clearance, and reconciliation (checking that buyers’ and sellers’ documentation matches up) processes associated with all the traded instruments (e.g., equities or bonds). But, if you work in loan operations, you’ll be involved with all the administrative processes associated with the lending business from the time loan proceeds are dispersed to the borrower until the loan is repaid.

Similarly, investment banking operations jobs help with the running of the M&A and capital markets functions. Retail banking operations jobs are concerned with transactions involving individuals and are usually carried out at bank branches. Operations jobs can also be known as “back-office jobs.” In other words, you won’t be dealing with clients directly.

Jobs available in financial operations

If you want to work in operations, you have a number of options available to you.

Operations jobs in securities businesses

If you work in an operations job in a securities business, you’ll be supporting the trading floor. You might be working on:

Clearance: Updating accounts of trading counterparties, matching buys and sells, and arranging for settlement (ie. payment).

Settlement: Exchanging money and securities between the seller and the buyer on the trade settlement date.

Trade confirmations: Documenting the specific commercial terms of a transaction to which the parties agreed, including pricing.

Reconciliation: Ensuring that the buys match the sells, resolving errors, or checking the validity of transactions. Operations jobs in banks are about monitoring existing processes and procedures. They’re also about creating improvements and increasing efficiency. In the U.S., most are sponsored by their companies to sit for the Series 7 and Series 63 securities exams.

For a long time, securities operations jobs were the most numerous in investment banks. There were far more people processing transactions on the trading floor than actually working in sales and trading. These days, much of what happens in the operations division is now controlled by technology, but human beings are still needed to help with exceptions when processes don’t run smoothly. Those humans might not be in London or New York. Securities operations jobs are typically located away from large Western financial cities, where premises and people are usually less costly.

If you have a job in commodities operations, you’ll carry out many of the same processes as in securities operations – but you’ll also have to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the commodities markets. People with jobs in physical commodities operations need an understanding of what’s involved in buying or selling an actual barrel of oil, for example.

Loan operations jobs

Loan operations jobs ensure the accurate and timely operations of a bank’s loan process. This includes booking loans on the loan system, maintaining loan documents, verifying and auditing key data elements (including financial, tax, and business information, assembling and maintaining credit files on borrowers) managing loan collateral, exception resolution, and performing regulatory reporting. The loan operations function also performs loan research to resolve problems associated with borrowers or transactions, and processes loan payoffs.

Loan operations managers design and administer procedures and systems. They also ensure that each stage of the loan process is carried out in accordance with federal, state, and local laws and regulations, particularly in consumer loans where errors can be very costly.

Investment banking operations jobs

Investment banking operations jobs are all about helping the front-office complete M&A and underwriting transactions. If you work in investment banking operations, you might be involved in the due diligence surrounding a deal or working on the graphics of a pitchbook.

In capital markets operations, your job will involve supporting the debt capital markets and equity capital markets units as they underwrite the launch of new securities. You’ll assist in data analysis, data presentation, documentation and due diligence and will ensure that the transaction proceeds smoothly. In many ways, your job will be similar to that of securities operations professionals. – You’ll work on client onboarding, trade capture, settlement and clearance, and general client support.

Skills you’ll need for operations jobs in banks

Operations people need strong product and industry knowledge to facilitate transactions and address any processing problems.

You’ll also need to be a strong communicator. Operations professionals deal with everyone from traders to auditors to investment bankers and need to describe complex processes in simple terms. They also deal extensively with other control functions, including compliance, credit, risk, and technology.

Technical skills are also a critical part of the operations skillset: operational processes are now controlled by complex technology systems and even if you’re not coding these systems yourself, you’ll need to understand them.

Operations careers can progress along several different paths. Many operations professionals find that they are called upon to broaden the scope of their activities as they progress. Others become specialists in a particular aspect of the operations process like settlement, clearance or project management. Some move into the front office in areas like sales and trading (although this can be a tough move to make, so don’t count on it happening).

Education & qualifications you’ll need for operations jobs in banking

Operations professionals are very different to other people that work closer to the money in financial services, and they therefore have different educational requirements. That is to say, they have fewer specifics.

When we analyzed the junior ranks of Goldman Sachs’ operations team, there was an extremely varied range of graduate backgrounds, with law, economics, history, business, and management science all represented.

In the past, financial services firms have recruited a wide variety of people for is operations positions - hedge fund DE Shaw, for instance, is known to have hired painters and poets. Fine arts masters aside, there’s also the Investment Operations Certificate (IOC) from CISI, although like all CISI qualifications, it’s primarily a UK-recognized qualification. It can also feed into CISI’s global operations management qualification, a Level 6 diploma, which is hypothetically equivalent to a bachelors degree. CFA institute’s IMC qualification might also be useful here.

Salaries & bonuses in financial services operations

Operations jobs aren’t very well paid by their colleagues’ standards. Although operations professionals do enjoy lower working hours than most of their peers, their low pay means that they also earn some of the lowest compensation per hour, our 2025 Salary and Bonus report found.

Our report also found that operations professionals were paid bonuses approximately 5 to 30% of their salary, depending on seniority. That’s more or less on par with their colleagues in middle-office functions such as risk and compliance, but far below the potential bonuses reached by their investment banking or sales & trading peers.

On average, operations bonuses were 23% of salary, the lowest of the professional functions we surveyed. Compliance and risk bonuses were 28% and 34% of salary respectively, while investment banking and sales & trading bonuses were 92% and 98% of salary, respectively. 

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