We had this interesting snippet emailed to us today… how would you feel if you had saved your colleagues from a “threatening” work situation, saved your employer thousands of dollars and then got fired the week after?

Well, the USA has a different view in the finance and banking industry - it happened to Jim Nicholson who works for a US Bank. Here’s the story.

 Jim Nicholson could’ve just handed over the cash. Instead, he gave the would-be robber a run for his money — and paid for it.

The 30-year-old bank teller said the suspect, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, walked up to his counter at the Key Bank branch in suburban Seattle, Washington, demanding he fill the man’s bag with cash.

“So I grab the bag … I threw it on the floor,” Nicholson told CNN Radio. He said he demanded the robber show him a weapon. When he realized there was none, Nicholson said, he lunged at the robber, chased him down the street, pinned him down and waited for the police.

That was Tuesday of last week. He lost his job Thursday.

Why?

“Policy violation,” Nicholson said. “Basically, we are supposed to comply with any robber that would come in. We’re supposed to just give him the money and let him go — and obviously I did not do that.”

Key Bank spokeswoman Anne Foster declined to comment on the incident, saying it’s under investigation, and Nicholson’s termination, saying it’s a personnel matter.

“What I can say is Key’s highest priority is to protect the safety of our employees and our clients,” she said. “Our policies and procedures are in the best interest of public safety and they’re consistent with industry standards.”

“Money, after all, is insurable and it’s replaceable,” she added. “Lives are not.”

Nicholson said he knew about the company’s robbery policy before the incident, but said he acted on instinct. He found his dismissal a bit harsh, but said he doesn’t plan to challenge it.

“I think that they probably wanted to set an example,” he said. “I don’t think they want other tellers to do the same thing.”

Attribution CNN

If you knew the potential robber was a fake, would you save your employer their money, and diffuse the situation or would you let them commit the robbery?

This guide is intended to give you guidance and advice on writing your CV and preparing for job interviews. This is not intended to be prescriptive, these are only suggestions. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be listing other guides such as how to plan your interview and preparing for interview questions.

Preparing your CV
It’s important to give your CV plenty of thought and spend a while on getting it right. A well-presented CV which obviously details your skills and experience can make all of the difference in getting the job you desire. So plan ahead don’t leave making or updating your CV until the last minutes

Structure Your CV
It should be between 2-3 pages in length and include the following sections.

 Personal information
Job History Education and Qualifications
Key Abilities / Strengths Referees / References on Request

Format
Your CV must be well laid out so that it is instantly simple to read and understand. Leave lots of white space, dont cram so much information in an attempt to fit everything onto one page. Employ a standard font size, which is simple to read, like Arial ten. Keep it simplistic.

Content
Concentrate on info which has relevancy to your own career goals. Use concise, clear sentences, avoid exaggerations and a flowery writing style. Don’t make fake claims ; truthfulness is always the best policy. Bullet points are helpful to focus on relevant talents and experience and help break up continual text.

Stress your past achievements and the abilities you used to get the results you achieved. Put your highest level of education first. Put your latest job first and work backward chronologically in time.

Guarantee all dates are correct and include months as well as years. If you are making a vocation change, stress what abilities are transferable to support your new career objectives. Explain any long career gaps ( i.e. Travelling, pregnancy leave for example. ) these will only need to be explained to our clients.

Keep to the same tense.
Customize your CV for categorical vacancies by concentrating on prior experience or abilities that have relevancy to the job. Most significantly, always entirely proof-read your CV or ask somebody to do it for you. Job interview methods General hints and suggestions Think about yourself it is vital before a job interview to consider all of the reasons why you are attending it and what you’ve got to offer the organisation. Be in a position to debate both short and long term career goals often.

Openings in CVs
You will also have to explain openings in roles you’ve worked in when you get to interview, so If you worked in a brief capacity but failed to put it on your CV, know the small print of which firms you worked with, what you probably did for them and the length of the assignments.

Reasons for leaving
Think about how you’ll discuss  or your explanation on why you left your prior roles. If it was for a better opportunity, reveal why it was a better opportunity. If you left involuntarily, present the reason in the most positive light you can. Ensure that your replies are fair and positive to questions asked.

Research the job
Before attending any job interview it’s a good idea to investigate the organisation and familiarize yourself with the following : Size of organisation, number of staff. History, how long have they been operating have they got any associated organisations or belong to an umbrella group? General info about their services / products / aims etc.

Good luck with your CV prep, and remember if you dont feel 100% confident with your CV - get professional help from a CV writer! Don’t let your dream job slip you by…

Did you know that searching for a new job can be a stressful experience? There’s the cover letter to write, the C.V.  to format, calling various companies and recruitment consultants and trying to get interviews, and then keeping track and following through.

Sometimes you just need to take a quick break.

The FinanceJobs game may look simple at first, but it becomes increasingly challenging the further you progress, so, we invite you to test your  lateral thinking and reaction skills with this game.

Our bobble game has been specifically designed to ease stress while improving job hunters ratio of CV’s sent to obtaining interviews. (We’re just joking, but would like you to believe that you will find it useful when you need to take a quick break to re-focus)

The game is located at the top of the right margin of FinanceJobs.co.nz  or click here to play the game.

Good luck and we look forward to seeing on the leaderboard!

When was the last time you looked at your CV? I bet it was when you were looking for work, not many people update their CV until they really need it.

I am sure you have been there too… You’ve just seen a fantastic position advertised you know that you meet or exceed the spec requirements, and you’ve already mentally moved into your new office. Just one snag though. Your CV is a bit out of date, so upon finishing work you update your CV over a glass of wine.

We’ve all been in this position before of know some one that has put together their CV pretty quickly and then wondered why they didn’t get the job.

Here’s some of the most important overlooked areas of CV writing and submission that applicants make:

- You have not fully explained what you do now in your current position

- You have not fully explained why you are applying for the new role in a cover letter.

- Your CV was tailored for the last role you applied for and you didn’t update it to be relevant for this new position.

- You do not have up to date permission from your referees – they’ll be quite surprised if they found out you had listed them as a referee without their permission. If your referee listed is more than three months old, the correct thing to do is to advise them that you still have them listed.

- Make sure that your referee’s are still contactable, it could be embarrassing if they have moved company and you have not kept in touch.

- Update your contact details on your cv

- Update your salary requirements on your application

If you are applying for a senior role or are thinking or applying for positions that don’t come around very often – consider using a professional CV writing service. These typically cost around 50 –150 NZD depending on what your requirements are. A few dollars there could return you thousands in the long run.

Take a moment and enter our poll and find out what how many applications to interviews other candidates get!

A financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the review of the financial statements of a company or any other legal entity (including governments), resulting in the publication of an independent opinion on whether or not those financial statements are relevant, accurate, complete, and fairly presented.

Financial audits are typically performed by firms of practicing accountants due to the specialist financial reporting knowledge they require. The financial audit is one of many assurance or attestation functions provided by accounting and auditing firms, whereby the firm provides an independent opinion on published information.

Many organisations separately employ or hire internal auditors, who do not attest to financial reports but focus mainly on the internal controls of the organization. External auditors may choose to place limited reliance on the work of internal auditors.

Stages of an audit

A financial audit is performed before the release of the financial statements (typically on an annual basis), and will overlap the year-end (the date which the financial statements relate to).

The following are the stages of a typical audit:[citation needed]

Planning and risk assessment

Timing: before year-end

What is the purpose:

To understand the business of the company and the environment in which it operates.

What should auditors understand?[1]

The relevant industry, regulatory, and other external factors including the applicable financial reporting framework

The nature of the entity

The entity’s selection and application of accounting policies

The entity’s objectives and strategies, and the related business risks that may result in material misstatement of the financial statements

The measurement and review of the entity’s financial performance

Internal control relevant to the audit

To determine the major audit risks (i.e. the chance that the auditor will issue the wrong opinion). For example, if sales representatives stand to gain bonuses based on their sales, and they account for the sales they generate, they have both the incentive and the ability to overstate their sales figures, thus leading to overstated revenue. In response, the auditor would typically plan to increase the rigour of their procedures for checking the sales figures.

Internal controls testing

Timing: before and/or after year-end

What is the purpose:

To assess the operating effectiveness of internal controls (e.g. authourisation of transactions, account reconciliations, segregation of duties). If internal controls are assessed as effective, this will reduce (but not entirely eliminate) the amount of ’substantive’ work the auditor needs to do (see below).

Notes:

In some cases an auditor may not perform any internal controls testing, because he/she does not expect internal controls to be reliable. When no internal controls testing is performed, the audit is said to follow a substantive approach.

This test determines the amount of work to be performed i.e. substantive testing or test of details.[citation needed]

Substantive procedures

Financial audits exist to add credibility to the implied assertion by an organization’s management that its financial statements fairly represent the organization’s position and performance to the firm’s stakeholders (interested parties). The principal stakeholders of a company are typically its shareholders, but other parties such as tax authorities, banks, regulators, suppliers, customers and employees may also have an interest in ensuring that the financial statements are accurate.

The audit is designed to reduce the possibility of a material misstatement. A misstatement is defined as false or missing information, whether caused by fraud (including deliberate misstatement) or error. Material is very broadly defined as being large enough or important enough to cause stakeholders to alter their decisions.

The exact ‘audit opinion’ will vary between countries, firms and audited organisations.

In the US, the CPA firm provides written assurance that financial reports are ‘fairly presented in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).’ The measure for ‘fairly presented’ is that there is less than 5% chance (5% audit risk) that the financial statements are ‘materially misstated’.

Finalization

Timing: at the end of the audit

What is the purpose:

To compile a report to management regarding any important matters that came to the auditor’s attention during performance of the audit,

To evaluate and review the audit evidence obtained, ensuring sufficient appropriate evidence was obtained for every material assertion and

To consider the type of audit opinion that should be reported based on the audit evidence obtained.

Last week we asked do you know who are the “Big four” ?    We thought you would for New Zealand; So we also tested your banking knowledge by asking if you knew which big four are present in USA, Australia and South Africa.  Did you get the it right?

United States - Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo

Australia - National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac/St. George Bank,Australia and New Zealand Banking Group

In South Africa, these are: First National Bank, Absa Group Limited (owned by Barclays Bank), Standard Bank and Nedbank

Well done to all entrants that got the correct answers! 

So you think that you might want to start trading currency, or are interested in finding out more about financial instruments and currency trading terms which is the starting point of understanding the Financial and currency markets. Below are some of the most commonly used terms and thier meanings:

Spot

A spot transaction is a two-day delivery transaction (except in the case of trades between the US Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Turkish Lira and Russian Ruble, this settles the next business day), as opposed to the futures contracts, which are usually three months. This trade represents a “direct exchange” between the two currencies, it has the shortest time frame and involves cash rather than a contract; interest is not included in the agreed-upon transaction. Spot transactions have around the second largest turnover by volume after Swap transactions among all FX transactions in the Global FX market.

Forward

Another way to deal with the foreign exchange risk is to engage in a forward the transaction. In this transaction, the money does not actually change hands until future date. A buyer and seller agree on an exchange rate for any date in the future, and the transaction occurs on that date, regardless of what the market rates are then. The duration of the trade can be a one day, a few days, months or years. Usually the date is decided by both parties.

Currency future

Foreign currency futures are exchange traded forward transactions that have a standard contract size and maturity dates — for example, $2000 for next December at an agreed rate.  Future’s are standardized and are usually traded on an exchange created for this purpose. The average contract length is roughly 3 months. Futures contracts are usually inclusive of any interest amounts.

Foreign exchange swap

The most common type of forward transaction is the currency swap. In a swap, two parties exchange currencies for a certain length of time and agree to reverse the transaction at a later date. These are not standardized contracts and are not traded through an exchange.

Foreign exchange option

A foreign exchange option (commonly shortened to just FX option) is a derivative where the owner has the right but not the obligation to exchange money denominated in one currency into another currency at a pre-agreed exchange rate on a specified date. The FX options market is the deepest, largest and most liquid market for options of any kind in the world.

Exchange-Traded Fund

Exchange-traded funds (or ETFs) are open ended investment companies that can be traded at any time throughout the course of the day. Typically, ETFs try to replicate a stock market index such as the S&P 500 (e.g., SPY), but recently they are now replicating investments in the currency markets with the ETF increasing in value when the US Dollar weakens versus a specific currency, such as the Euro. Certain of these funds track the price movements of world currencies versus the US Dollar, and increase in value directly counter to the US Dollar, allowing for speculation in the US Dollar for US and US Dollar denominated investors and speculators.

Speculation

Controversy about currency speculators and their effect on currency devaluations and national economies recurs regularly. Nevertheless, economists including Milton Friedman have argued that speculators ultimately are a stabilizing influence on the market and perform the important function of providing a market for hedgers and transferring risk from those people who don’t wish to bear it, to those who do.

Most people will have come across the term the big FOUR within the banking industry, maybe you read about them in the newspaper or on a blog somewhere. However the big four is quite a geo-specific term, and even regional if you are based in the UK when comparing to Scotland / Ireland / Wales.  

Do you work in the banking industry, do you think you know your banks? Take a moment out and answer our FJ online quiz. Answers will be posted on the blog so keep tuned.

Can you name the “Big four” for these three countries?

United States

Australia

South Africa

We considered adding New Zealand to the list - but this would have been way to easy!!  Answers will be posted on the blog, keep tuned.

The foreign exchange market - forex -  is where currency trading takes place. It is where banks and other official institutions buy and sell foreign currencies.   

The foreign exchange market that we know of today started evolving during the seventies when developed countries gradually moved across to a floating exchange rate from their current exchange rate policy. 

So what is FOREX ?

Forex transactions involve one person or party purchasing a number of one currency in exchange for paying a quantity of another currency. 

Presently, the FX (Forex) market is one of the largest and most liquid financial markets in the world, it includes major trading between banking institutions, central banks,  individuals that speculate, corporations, governments, and a range of financial institutions. The average daily volume in the global foreign exchange and related markets is continuously growing. Historically daily turnover on the market has been reported to be over US$3.2 trillion in April 2007 by the Bank for International Settlements. However since then the FX market has grown, with an expeted volume of an addition 50%

Forex Market size and liquidity

The foreign exchange market is unique because of  its trading volumes, the extreme liquidity of the market and it’s its geographical dispersion - any one anywhere can make a transaction with the rise of tele-trading.

The FX market is open 24 hours aday unlike stock trading,  (except on weekends) and unlike stocks there are wider opportunities for markets to rise and fall in a very short space of time . This alone makes it very exciting for day traders and speculators that can earn sesrious money in a short space of time.

Interesting FX facts 

According to the Bank for International Settlements; the average daily turnover for global FX markets is estimated at around $3.98 trillion! Trading in the world’s main financial markets accounts for $3.21 trillion. This is approximately $3.21 trillion in the main foreign exchange market turnover broken down as :

$1.005 trillion in spot transactions

$362 billion in outright forwards

$1.714 trillion in foreign exchange swaps

$129 billion estimated gaps in reporting

If you are looking for a stable income or career then becoming part of the Currency industry could be a high potential option. There are a range of career options from self employed speculator to working within major banks or the FX infrastructure. 

Law of banking… I bet you never did read that small print…. The universal Banking law is based on the contractual relationship between the bank and it’s customer. We’ put into plain English some facts that you may like to know about.  Where the incident of Westpac and it’s customer was incorrectly credited with millions of dollars, it’s well worth knowing where you stand.

The bank account balance is a financial position between the bank and the bank’s customer: when the account is in credit the bank actually owes this balance to you the customer; when the account is overdrawn, the customer owes the balance to the bank.

The bank agrees to pay the customer’s cheques up to the amount standing to the credit of the customer’s account, plus any agreed overdraft limit.

The bank may not pay from the customer’s account without a mandate from the customer, e.g. a cheque drawn by the customer.

The bank must promptly collect the cheques deposited to the customer’s account as the customer’s agent, and to credit the proceeds to the customer’s account.

The bank is not allowed to disclose details of transactions through the customer’s account—unless the customer consents or there is a public duty to disclose, the bank’s interests require it, or the law demands it.

The bank can if they choose, to combine the customer’s accounts, since each account is just an aspect of the same credit relationship.

The bank has a lien on cheques deposited to the customer’s account, to the extent that the customer is indebted to the bank.

The bank is not allowed to close a customer’s account without reasonable notice, since cheques are outstanding in the ordinary course of business for several days.

New Zealand Banks are guaranteed by the Government so if there are unforeseen market events your money is safe.

These implied contractual terms are sometimes modified by express agreement between the customer and the bank. Yet these terms are the basis of the banking industry.