Careers / MERIDIAN BANK

The bank employs four thousand two hundred people across forty-one jurisdictions. We recruit twice a year into the analyst programme and continuously at experienced level. This page describes what we look for, what the work is, and how you will be paid for it.

The candidate

We are not looking for the most technically able applicant in the room. Technical ability is abundant, is testable, and is improved by eleven weeks of training. We are looking for judgement of a particular shape, and we describe it plainly rather than leave candidates to guess.

Comfort with an incomplete picture. Instructions are executed against message data. Commercial purpose is not carried on the message standards this institution receives, and is not a prerequisite to execution. Candidates who need the full commercial context before acting find correspondent work frustrating, and the mismatch is better identified at interview than in year two.
Precision about scope. Our strongest analysts share a habit: they answer the question that was asked. Scope discipline keeps files moving. An observation attached to a file review outside its terms of reference requires separate disposition and a further approval, which delays the file it was attached to.
Durable relationships. Correspondent banking is conducted by telephone between people who have known one another for eleven years. We hire for the capacity to be that person in year eleven.
Discretion as a habit rather than a rule. Confidentiality obligations are contractual and every institution has them. We assess something narrower, which is whether you find it natural. It is assessed by interview and by reference, and it is the criterion on which most otherwise excellent candidates are declined.
A settled personal position. Our compensation structure defers the majority of the award for four years and remains recoverable for seven. It suits candidates whose circumstances do not require the money quickly.

Intake

Measure	Analyst programme, most recent cycle
Applications received	1,140
Progressed to first interview	214
Progressed to assessment	68
Offers extended	26
Offer rate	2.28 per cent
Training before first live file	11 weeks
Rotations before permanent placement	3

The assessment day includes a file exercise, a numerical component and a structured discussion of three declined relationships. Candidates are marked on whether they identify the reason each was declined. Candidates who additionally set out the terms on which each could have been accepted are marked separately for commercial judgement, and that mark carries the greater weight.

Compensation

Base salary for a first year analyst is 78,000, reviewed annually. The discretionary award is the larger component from year three.

Element	Treatment	Illustration on a 200,000 award
Immediate cash	40 per cent, paid in March	80,000
Deferred component	60 per cent, vesting in four equal annual instalments	120,000, that is 30,000 per year
Vesting period	Four years from award	Fully vested in year five
Clawback period	Seven years from award	Recoverable for three years after full vesting
Malus	Applied to unvested instalments at the institution’s discretion	Assessed annually against conduct and performance
Notice period, director and above	Six months	Served on garden leave
Post-termination restriction	Twelve months	Paid at 50 per cent of base
Total period out of market on exit	Eighteen months	Paid 58,500 across the period

The clawback window runs three years beyond full vesting. This is disclosed at offer stage, is consistent with supervisory expectations on remuneration in this sector, and applies uniformly from analyst to executive. Candidates are encouraged to read the schedule in full before accepting, and the great majority do.

Where the careers go

Function	Median tenure	Retention at 24 months
Relationship direction, correspondent	11 years	92 per cent
Treasury and settlement	9 years	88 per cent
Financial crime analysis, second line	19 months	41 per cent
Monitoring and remediation programmes	Duration of the programme	Reported at programme close

The second line as a route. Financial crime analysis is the function from which this institution is best observed, and that visibility is valued across the bank. The great majority of movement out of the second line is movement into origination, treasury and relationship direction rather than out of the group. We treat the function as a development post, we say so at recruitment, and we would encourage candidates to weigh the twenty-four month figure in that light.</div>

Roughly one senior compliance appointment in seven arrives from a supervisory authority within twenty-four months of leaving it, that is 14.3 per cent of that population. We value the perspective and we say so publicly. The traffic runs in both directions, and we have supplied candidates to two authorities over the same period.

Applying

Applications open in October and March. Submit a curriculum vitae and a single page setting out one occasion on which you declined to escalate a matter and were right to. We do not accept covering letters, referee lists or portfolio material at first stage.

Candidates introduced by a current employee are assessed against the same criteria and progress at approximately three times the rate of direct applicants. The referral programme is reviewed annually by the head of talent and by the second line.