There are four types of pre employment checks typically carried out by financial institutions on their prospective employees. The necessity to carry out these intensive checks is in the fact that the employees historically hired by the financial institutions end up being put in charge of other people's money. Yet it is recognized that only a person of very high integrity would take care of another person's money, without getting tempted to get his or her hands into the till. That is especially the case keeping in mind the fact that the sums of money handled in some situations can be very mouthwatering.
In the final analysis, there are (as indicated earlier) four types of employment checks typically carried out by financial institutions in a bid to ensure that they only hire trustworthy people of high moral standing. Those include:
1. Criminal record checks. The idea is to ensure that criminals do not find their way into financial institutions. Government's law enforcement agencies are therefore requested to provide the hiring financial institutions with a list of previous criminal charges against the applicants, as well as the cases of the trials (if the issues were historically for trial). Take note that in some cases, an indictment may be enough to deny you employment, even if you were not ever convicted. The idea is to ensure that the highest standards are upheld. In most cases, it is only the people with totally untarnished names who stand any chance of getting hired.
2. Educational record checks. The idea is to ensure that only people with proper qualifications get hired. But in the process, a moral angle comes up: because if it emerges that one cave false information on educational qualifications (in the course of independent verification for educational records), then it would be evident that that is not a person of integrity. Indeed, a person like that would have apt to falsify clients' financial records for personal gain when opportunity arises. It is widely appreciated that not all criminals have criminal records (seeing that some are 'too clever' to be taken or suspected), because the need for counter-checks which may still reveal people with criminal tendencies. And anyone who can forge or otherwise falsify an educational certificate is definitely a criminal who has no business whatever working in the financial system.
3. Credit checks. The idea here is to check a person's financial proprietary. Several factors inform the need for this sort of checks. First of all, it is appreciated that if you put a person with major financial problems in charge of other people's money, he or she may be tempted to steal. Secondly, if you put a financially irresponsible person in charge of other peoples' money, he or she is not likely to take proper care of it. For these reasons, credit checks are carried out on almost all people seeking to work in financial institutions.
4. Previous employment checks. The objective here is to avoid having irresponsible workers. But in the process, other issues may be unearthed. It is to be appreciated that out of fear for bad publicity, many financial institutions do not report in-house frauds, especially where the people involved show willingness to make reparations. But they usually fire the people involved, and show willingness to (confidently) share what they know about such people with future employers who may show interest in the same. It is out of appreciation for these factors we see many financial institutions seeking confidential references from previous employers, as part of their pre employment checks, before hiring 'experienced bankers.'