Intermediate Banking Professional study plan

Map the credit analysis process end to end: application intake, KYC, scoring, underwriting, documentation, disbursement, monitoring

Compute and interpret the five Cs of credit for two contrasting borrower profiles (a small trading company and a salaried retail borrower)

Build a personal glossary of at least 25 credit terms with a one-line definition and a worked example for each

Practice calculating debt service coverage ratio, loan-to-value, and debt-to-income for three sample cases without notes

Analyze a full set of financial statements: restate the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow into a common-size format

Calculate and interpret liquidity, leverage, profitability, and efficiency ratios, and explain what each ratio signals to a lender

Reconstruct a cash flow statement from two years of balance sheet data and identify the drivers of operating cash flow

Identify at least five early warning signs of deteriorating creditworthiness hidden in the statements

Distinguish working capital finance, term lending, and project finance by purpose, tenor, and repayment source

Evaluate collateral: valuation methods, haircuts, perfection requirements, and guarantor assessment

Assess a project finance case using NPV, IRR, and payback, and explain why DSCR matters more than collateral in project lending

Draft covenant packages (financial and affirmative) for a mid-sized corporate borrower and justify each covenant

Classify risks into credit, market, liquidity, operational, and reputational, and match each to a control or limit

Compute value at risk for a simple two-asset portfolio and explain its limitations to a non-specialist

Apply the Basel framework's three pillars and distinguish standardized from internal-ratings-based approaches

Build a risk register for a retail branch with at least 10 entries scored by likelihood and impact

Outline the regulatory architecture: central bank, prudential regulator, deposit insurance, and securities regulator, and state each one's core mandate

Summarize the main compliance obligations: AML/CFT, KYC and customer due diligence, sanctions screening, and suspicious activity reporting

Explain capital adequacy, liquidity coverage, and reserve requirements, and describe how each constrains a bank's balance sheet

Walk through consumer protection and fair lending rules and identify three practices that create compliance risk

Explain how monetary policy transmission works through interest rates, credit, and asset prices, and how a rate change affects a bank's net interest margin

Compare commercial banks, thrifts, credit unions, and non-bank lenders by funding model, regulation, and customer base

Trace the lifecycle of a payment: card authorization, clearing, and settlement, and the role of the payment scheme and the central bank

Distinguish treasury functions: liquidity management, funding, FX, and interest rate risk, and describe the instruments used in each

Reconcile a nostro account and explain the controls that prevent settlement and counterparty risk

Describe the mechanics and risks of trade finance instruments: letters of credit, guarantees, and documentary collections

Map the operational risk controls around payments: segregation of duties, dual authorization, cut-off times, and exception handling

Explain how a bank manages intraday liquidity and why payment system outages are a supervisory concern

Diagnose customer needs and match products to them, distinguishing advisory selling from product pushing

Apply a structured needs analysis to a small business owner seeking both a deposit and a lending relationship

Review all seven domains using a personal error log and re-test the three weakest areas

Complete two full-length timed practice sets and analyze every wrong answer by domain and error type