Pay scale for BSA Officer

Basically, I am wondering how much I "should" be making vs what I am making. I haven't been able to find any kind of real pay scale for a BSA position and have the feeling lately that I'm really being, well, screwed over.

When I accepted the position, we were a fairly small bank ($400M) but have since grown and acquired other banks and are now at roughly $850M with twice as many branch locations. I've been in this position almost two years and was the BSA assistant for awhile before that.

I make $35000 for the position of BSA Officer. I am in the midwest in a metropolitan area. It just seems like due to the added responsibilities that come with doubling in size in a short period of time...$35k ain't cutting it as far as compensating for stress level. Oh yeah...I'm also responsible for the operations half of compliance!

Just wondering if I have a leg to stand on if I were to ask for a raise (or demand one)? It's not like anyone else wants this job (we all know it takes a special breed to love BSA!), so I have a feeling if I threated to leave I could make something happen but I would really hate to do that only to find out later that my salary wasn't really that bad and I gave up a not-so-bad job for nothing.

Thanks for any help/advice...keep in mind that I am 25 so I haven't had a world of experience but a few years is better than nothing (right?!?).

I think you should be at $60,000.00 - at a minimum.

You need to be looking at the prevailing wages for BSA officers in your own area. Rates can fluctuate widely depending on the area you live in. Check with your state banking association. Most do annual wage and benefits surveys.

You may want to check out a salary website, or statistics by your CPA company, local chamber, etc.

Two sites from the past -
http://www.salary.com
http://www.salaryexpert.com

I am in your same location (midWest), at a multi billion dollar bank, and I am in charge of BSA, Security and all of Compliance with a staff of two. I make in the low 6 figures. Dude (or dudette), you are woefully underpaid. I agree that 60,000 is probably adequate compensation in your situation.

I am in the northeast...
Small bank, 350 million in assets- but growing. 10 branches.
I am the BSA Officer and Compliance Officer.
I make around 45,000.

I agree that you are extremely underpaid. Do you subscribe to the Regulatory Risk Monitor? They do an annual salary survey that has a TON of information in it. It breaks out avg salary in many different ways including: title, location, asset size, gender, experience, etc. I highly recommend checking this out - this would be a great thing to show to your boss to support your request for a raise.

I did a quick calculation based on the 2006 data (the newest one I have) and the info you provided (age, experience, time in job, location/asset size, title) and came up with an approximate average salary of $54,795

Thanks! No, I do not subscribe to that and generally my bank will not pay for subscriptions unless you are an executive officer...so that's a no go for me.

I've tried a few salary sites (inc. those listed above) and can't find any bsa listings. Does anyone know of a free (or at least cheap) site that I could get average bank salaries?

Thanks to everyone for the input. I think it's time that I take a stand on this!

Anon, if I'm not mistaken, BOL has a place in the 'Career Connect' tab that helps with salary information. I haven't gone there in quite some time but I'm pretty sure there is a link to the information that you're looking for.

Yes, if you go to the Career Connet' tab at the top, click there and then look at the right hand side of the screen & there is something that says 'Find out what you're worth'.

Good luck.

By the way, I think that you are grossly underpaid as well.

Most of the salary sites like salary.com have compliance jobs listed under the "legal" jobs category. Check that area and you should find some info.

UR 25. B patient. I went from 18 to 29 to 30 to 35 to 50 K in about 6 yrs. Maybe they want to leave some room for future increases - you'll have nowhere to go (upwards) if they immediately give you max pay at age 25 (with presumably less than 7 years time with them).

Regardless of age you should be paid for the job you do.

I agree with Dazed. It doesn't matter what age you are. It matters what experience you have. I am 31 and have been the BSA Officer and Compliance Officer for almost 3 years. Prior to that I was an auditor. I have 10+ years banking experience.

I think for my area and my position I could be getting paid slightly more, but it was a battle to get the salary I am at right now.

Also, most salaried positions are "graded" and have a salary range. You should find out what your grade is (if you have one). I am in the mid range of my grade currently, which seems about right....I think!

Keep in mind as well that the title Officer varies greatly from bank to bank. I worked for one large regional bank where anyone a branch manager or commercial lender and abogve was an officer and generally only meant you got an extra week of vacation.

Sometimes as well a BSA Officer, a OFAC Officer, does not carry the same "Officer" status as does being a true Officer of the bank (i.e. CEO, CFO, Comptroller, etc).

Also look at the area.

In a high laundering/narcotics area such as South Florida, expect the pay and risk to be a lot higher. The low 6 figure range is not uncommon.

I'm at 54K and haven't felt that the pay is fair considering the stress that comes with the BSA / Compliance Officer title, and it promises to get worse. The sad thing is that your boss, or the bank President in my case, doesn't have a clue. Good luck getting more, you deserve it.

Check this out. It doesn't list BSA exactly but I would think you can get some better ideas. (Last page lists figures, the rest explains how they got them)

https://www.crowehorwath.com/folio-pdf/2...-18107-002C.PDF

You do realize that this is a 9 year old post and after 9 years I can say that many people in the industry are underpaid based upon stress level and increased regulatory risk.

As mentioned in this post and several others titles in one bank do not come with the same baggage in other banks, so it is difficult to compare.

Several years ago I saw this on an OCC pre-exam questionnaire: "Expressed as a percentage, what is the Compliance Officer's salary relative to the CEO's salary?" Apparently, it was intended to give the CEO a clue. It was in one OCC region and was gone the next time the bank got examined. Regardless, someone was trying to give the CEO a clue.

Personally, I do not think "compliance" is automatically a stressful job. In fact, I think it's far more interesting and stimulating than most jobs in banking. What can make any job stressful is the environment in which you are trying to do it.

There are certain "hotspots" which pay more for all BSA personnel. NYC, South Florida, Texas and certain parts of California all pay good money. Also, banks that have AML issues (Consent Orders, C&Ds or private written agreements) also pay more.

Well stated Ken. I agree. A compliance officer can choose to get stressed out and/or can choose to take stress home with them (or not).

OP, I'd ask them for a 100% increase, immediately. Let us know how it goes!

(Assistant BSA Officer, $45,000 in the south, $850 M bank with 11 branches. And that was in 2006. Male.)

I find it intriguing that you felt the necessity to include "male"

I thought the same thing.

Ditto

As someone who came from a small CU in the South, unfortunately, that distinction makes a BIG difference. Like at least $10,000 a year.

And that is why I am no longer with said CU.

I appreciated the “male” designation. It does very much make a difference where a lot of us work, sadly.

If your company has different pay scales for men and women with the same experience, education...

I think this is a bigger issue than BSA

Agreed Ed.

Dave & Ken, Stress level is inversely related to the level of support "Buy-In", you get from Senior Leadership. Dave, I do believe you have given talks about this issue about Leadership. Fish on dude.

I certainly have (and continue to) talk about support, unity & buy-in. My favorite topic.

P.S. Currently not fishing, but looking for warmer days.

Hey, let's revive a 10-year-old thread, that's always fun........(Why did I do that? So future Googlers like me can find the answers without searching out multiple threads.)


What's your rough estimate of appropriate BSA Officer salary? This person
- has a small staff to manage
- reports to the Compliance Director
- has about 15 years experience

It's a financial institution operating in 4 southern states of the U.S., with about 1 billion in assets and growing. No BSA enforcement orders (so far), but the last exam hasn't ended yet so the final result is unknown.

the answers will be so varied that they will provide you almost zero benefit. you are much better going on websites that specialize in recruiting and searching there

Just ask for a raise. This is like asking what the best vehicle is for travel. There are a thousand different answers based on very specific scenarios.

Spent a couple hours doing that first - way too vague/broad of range. Also many of the sites that I thought would have it, don't even have a BSA Officer title included in their options. It's not compliance director, not junior-level, etc. I'd still be interested in numbers from readers here, even though I do agree, that won't be directly relevant. I just want to know if, like the original OP, the number in use is actually half the amount everyone here thinks it should be.

Yes, there are countless factors to be considered when assigning a dollar value to a job.

It's always tempting to look at quantifiable measures such as the number of expense dollars and employees managed by an officer. You might even throw in the annual number of CTR and SAR filings and the number of Phase II exemptions managed.

My favorite view of the worth of a position was from the perspective of a Monday morning quarterback. Assume the incumbent failed to perform the duties in the job description and then add up the potential losses, penalties, enforcement actions, and other unhappy consequences that could result. Then, determine the likelihood that any of these nightmares could actually come true. (Horror stories from regulators news releases and trade association publications are always helpful in demonstrating that bad stuff actually CAN happen.) The result of this analysis should tell you how much the shareholders should be willing to pay for an insurance policy (meaning the BSA officer) to keep these risks at an acceptably low level.

When a BSA position is being priced, the penalty risks are massive, and so it's VERY important that the incumbent is experienced and does NOT make mistakes.

Very true! So.......can anyone throw some numbers out?

I'll throw this one out: $90,000.

Too high? Too low? Just right?

You can't detach a number from the job market where the position will be located. You should try to "normalize" a salary number by equating the value the bank gets from this job (how many fans and how much stuff hitting them) with another job (elsewhere in the bank, but with comparable responsibility) and start with the salary approved for the other position.

Thank you very much, sincerely. I don't mean this next response to make the "thanks" sound insincere, but what I have received is 4 answers that say, "No, I won't answer that" - in a sense. They include very good reasons why. Some answers include awesome instructions on how to proceed in the absence of a number in mind. But, I still have 4 "no" answers and/or suggestions to not seek this info. I do not disagree with what you all have said, but...

That aside, will anyone else on here give a number as an answer? Feel free to include as many of those variables as you want- region of country, why it is higher or lower, whatever. I'm looking for numbers. To those of you considering piling on another "no," please hold off on that until the question has been answered as asked. Thank you to all of you, really!

There are any number a job posting websites out there that list salary ranges. Go to glassdoor.com and search on bank compliance officer.

$180,000.

$537,985

Robert Half has had a great reference in the past, tailored by industry and location. You may want to sign in from home and check our the opportunities.

From your description, it would be impossible to even guess. $1B and in Miami could bring you $150K, but in the middle of Mississippi, it could be 1/4th that.


https://www.roberthalf.com/salary-guide

I know that ACAMS provides an annual evaluation where they have polled many BSA Officers and they compare location, asset size, education etc.

Good Luck

i know of a $1B bank paying their compliance officer greater than $200k, i know of another $1B bank paying their compliance officer $78k...in both cases they are the chief compliance officer...both banks are in the south, both are located in capital cities in their respective states, both have similar number of branches and employees...

see what we mean when we say the disparity of response would be so varied as to provide little to no benefit?

On the contrary, Happy, I find 78k to 200k to be of benefit (if for instance, the person in question is at 70k, this would be out of that anecdotal range), ditto for the 150k in Miami down to 38k in middle of Mississippi. Norman's toss-out of 180k was funny (unless he was serious), though not as funny as the 537,985.

I did try glassdoor and similar - huge range, and not broken down into asset size or other applicable factors.

The problem I find with things like the recruiter link suggested above is that increasingly these days it seems that salary is supposed to be some sort of unknowable number. I have a friend who was told that his request to know the salary range, so early in the process (after only ONE interview - gasp - the interviewer must've been clasping her pearls), was offensive and suggested he was primarily motivated by greed rather than a desire to serve. (An absurd response on that employer's, in my book.) I miss the days of "This is available, and it pays $X up to $X depending on experience." At least then you knew what the bottom number was, and that they would try to pay you that bottom number from day one no matter what your experience was. Now instead it's "Well, how much do you WANT to make?" then "Well, we can't discuss that number until our hiring decision is made."

Thanks to all.

How much do you WANT to make?

"Thank you for asking, but I'm confident your organization will see the value I may add and come up with an agreeable figure".

$537,985

Would be low for Citi, JPM, HSBC,BOA

As others have stated pay scale varies by location, asset size, complexity of products, etc. In my area, I know some BSA Officers making $150K, plus bonus, some making around $500k all in, others above $1 million if you factor in stock options (Usually MDs/Head of Financial Crime at a larger shop).

As you an applicant you should know your approximate worth. Any job I've ever applied for I knew what was an acceptable range for compensation, depending on salary and the type of bonus.

As ACB observes, the name you give a position says very little about the extent of the duties.

2018 Thread reviver here, hmm, now I'm the 2019 revivier:



Thanks for throwing out some numbers. Also wondering: ave you changed jobs or applied for a job in the past 5 years? There's this absurd attitude right now that an applicant isn't supposed to know how much a job pays until way too late in the application process, like it's some kind of state secret, when really it's essential info that would inform an applicant of whether he or she would even be interested in applying in the first place.

Also, this thread contains a dead link to a survey, here's a more recent one from the same source:

https://www.crowe.com/news/crowe-bank-compensation-and-benefits-survey-2018

2019 reviver:
P.S. So, what I meant by that is, sure I can spend 5 hours trying to formulate my own guestimate as to how much I think a position is worth. Usually that must be done before applying, because so many places now require you to input a number into their online application, and their "salary requirement" field is mandatory, meaning you can't submit the application without stating a number. And when one app let me put in $1 one time, they just called me and asked me verbally for the figure, and wouldn't schedule a meeting without hearing the figure first. A friend on the inside had warned me that their shop routinely threw out apps where the number was too high. But rather than just telling applicants what it pays, they make you fill out a one-hour application form online, and take a test, then name your salary requirement, just so they can glance at the salary number you stated and toss your application to the side. That's the job market these days, from my perspective as a qualified applicant with a high salary expectation.

But when a position is being posted, the onus of disclosing the one single most basic and fundamental incentive for applying - salary - should be on the company posting the listing, not on the numerous individuals interested in applying.

Perhaps you would be better served utilizing a qualified headhunter who can cut through all of that from the start and then link you with well matched employers. It doesn't sound like your current practice of wandering from one job opening page to another is suiting you well.

There are plenty on linked in btw.

Excluding my current role, I've switched jobs every 2 - 3 years mostly for a significant increase in compensation. I take a great interest in my career and I network with many different agencies, look up salaries on Glassdoor, and talk with some trusted colleagues about the various financial packages being offered in the market place. I also research the potential employer to see if they have regulatory issues as I know from past experience that makes the role significantly more challenging.

TBH I look at it very differently than you 2019 Reviver. As a hirer/buyer it's my job to get the best deal for my company. As an applicant, you need to do the same for yourself. As JJ stated, a trusted head hunter can provide a solid foundation of what's out there in your area.

i have never refused to interview a candidate solely on the salary they are asking for, and if you are highly qualified as you state, perhaps you are being denied interviews as you are applying for positions that are more entry level than upper tier. or your qualifications are not in line with what they are expecting. are you assuming your salary is what is keeping you from getting an interview, or have you specifically been told that? because in the job market today, regardless of why they don't want to interview you, my experience is you just don't get a call, period. they don't call and say "sorry, salary too high, we are not interested."

headhunter is a good option, as JJ noted.

of course, the annual revival of this thread may actually one day work in your favor

Really thought this horse was dead in 2018.

i'm making a note to look for it again in 2020...

That was addressed in my previous post:



It was just one time for me, where I was told that if your figure is too high, they shred the application. Plus my friend just had the experience of a bank withholding salary info until after the interview, then when they called him for a second interview, he asked if that meant the salary figure he named was being considered or had been accepted, they were shocked and offended, and the second interview didn't happen, all because he dared to confirm the salary was even within his range of numbers he might possibly accept.

Thanks for the rest of your post Hap - you were helpful, as always.

For those of you here who have posted complaints in this thread, I just want to say that I find it harmful and troll-like for frequent posters to chime in with meta commentary (complaining that a thread was revived, rather than answering or saying something relevant), or with criticisms of the people who post questions in these forums, and general chit-chat like that which is off-topic and an attempt to hijack or derail the Q&A process for people who are honestly just seeking help. If this was reddit or almost any forum other than BOL, that sort of negative "comment" and bullying, unhelpful behavior would have resulted in the poster being banned from the forum. Just sayin'.

I don't see any bullying in this thread nor do I see any hijacking attempts. Threads do sometimes have this type of flow and I think that a number of posters offered you some sound advice.

Are you by chance a millennial?

(Not you ACB)

i believe the comments by a number of posters are that information of this nature is normally of little to no benefit because there are too many variables to consider, and without knowing very many specifics about the poster (location, experience, background, education, bank size, target bank size, current salary, hopeful salary, size of bank(s), number of staff, specific job duties, corporate and officer title, just to name a few), then the answer really does not provide anything. I certainly did not see anything that was troll like, nor any attempt to hijack the thread.

What i did see was several versions of the straight answer that nothing you will get here is likely to be of value for this type of a question. Since it appears you want someone to give you an answer that agrees with or validates your summation, counter responses appears to have made you decide you were being trolled, which i don't believe is happening.

For examples of trolling on BOL, see the "nfl cheaters" thread in the watercooler.

^
This

For those that have not had to reenter the job search arena recently, it is a difficult situation. I agree with the millenials frustration about providing a salary. A few years ago when my bank was purchased, I did the "dance' with a recruiter and we eventually agreed to meet in the middle. Well, apparently she did not know how to divide by two. This baby boomer was surprised to find out when I started that I was $3000 short on my starting salary. I understood then why I never received a written offer. My fault for not getting that. Long story shortened, I found out the recruiter did this to two other new hires like myself. I understand trying to get salary information. Information is knowledge, knowledge provides power. It is tough to be on the job seeking side of things. Glad I found a great position at a great bank far away from the bank that took me for $3000.