Financial Examiner

Like a Bank Examiner or Banking Compliance Officer, a Financial Examiner makes sure that rules and regulations about money are being followed. The difference is that as a Financial Examiner, you don’t work for a bank. Instead, you keep businesses that handle large sums of money, especially those in real estate or the financial sector, in line. For example, a typical Financial Examiner job could have you looking over the books of an investment firm or the actions of a stock trading company.

Of course, you need to know the rules you’re in charge of upholding. This means you stay on top of new regulations and policies set by governing agencies (usually the Federal Government, but sometimes the state government or industry regulating agencies). You interpret these rules to clearly understand what it is your business should be doing to stay legal, and then you take a look at your company’s past actions and policies.

You examine things like past audits (either internal or external), expense reports, and balance sheets. You might even look at the minutes of meetings to make sure no secretive trading or inappropriate financial information was passed along. If you find something wrong, you work with company officers to create new ways of doing things that are legal and sound.

Once you’ve researched the laws and checked for compliance, the next big responsibility of your job is to report. You prepare reports and presentations, and hold meetings to explain your findings to the company’s board of directors, CFO, or CEO.