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When it’s time to select a career, there’s a vast world that opens up to you, including many fields in many industries. There’s a lot of different factors that may help you determine which career you’ll end up going to, and the income is certainly one of them. While you may not have an exact job title in mind, perhaps finances and numbers are things that are of interest to you. Looking through the various positions at a bank or financial institution, loan officer is one such title that may catch your attention. Here’s what they do, and what kind of salary a loan officer can expect to make.

First, before talking of loan officer salary, let’s see what they do and what the position implies. These are foremost people who work in the banking or financial sector. So before even becoming a loan officer, you need to have the basic skills for finance. While not all loan officers work for actual lending institutions, they still serve as an intermediary between the lender and whoever needs money. As such, it’s very important that they be professionals, who know the financial market, what risks are involved in many types of loans, and how to identify problem spots. This means as a loan officer, you should be quick at decision making, have an easy time with numbers, and be good with people. You often have to read through the lines, and find out if someone will really be a good investment for the lender that you represent.

Being a loan officer requires getting a degree in finance. Depending on your actual employer, you may or may not have to get a higher degree, it varies between location. Still, you always need to have an easy time showing your skills with finances, and be good at maths. Also, very few institutions will want to hire people who are indebted, have gone through bankruptcy, or show a lack of aptitude at handling their own finances. Still, if you’re good at math, and show yourself to be adept at handling finances and be a good people person, then perhaps this is the job for you. The loan officer salary starts at a reasonable $30,000 per year, and can go up significantly, depending on how good you are, and who you work for, sometimes up to $55,000. Remember that the institution relies on you to manage risks that they incur by lending. If you prove that you can always provide reliable customers, who won’t default on their loans, then you become very valuable, and may be worthy of a much higher salary.

Overall, a loan officer isn’t quite at the level of a bank manager, but it’s still someone who has to handle quite a lot of transactions. As a risk management specialist, he or she has the power to setup lending contracts between a financial institution and a client, which requires quite a bit of professionalism, and brings in an adequate salary.