Professional Workplace Dillema

When I enrolled in the University of Phoenix in 2008 I never thought that it would have such a profound effect on my everyday life. There are many situations that I have found myself in over the past few years, both professionally and personally, that I have leaned on the experiences from this school to get me through. Most of the time when I would be confronted with a sticky situation at work I would walk away feeling very unsatisfied with the outcome because the people involved were not coached effectively.

I work at Bank of America as a Senior Personal Banker. My job has many duties in addition to opening bank accounts for consumer and business clients. Without a doubt the most important part of my job is being able to authenticate a potential customer properly so as to prevent any illegal fraud and money laundering attempts. Since the economy has gone on a downward spiral over the past few years there have been more and more cases of identity theft, structuring, layering, and money laundering. This type of financial activity can be hard to catch because it almost always is initiated by some one that you would never think would be a launderer.

As a personal banker one of the most crucial parts of my job is to ensure that when I am opening a bank account for someone that I obtain the correct pieces of identification for them. There are some personal bankers that do not always record the correct information when opening the accounts. Many times this is done because they are trying to achieve certain sales goals in order to get a bonus at the end of each quarter. Some of the information that is entered into the system incorrectly is the expiration date of the driver's license being used for the primary id field.

In order for an identification to be acceptable for account it cannot be expired. I know a personal banker that has done this several times so that she did not have to turn away a potential new account. To me the biggest part of my job is making sure that once I have obtained the proper identification from the customer, I put them in the right account package based on the information they have given me for their financial needs. I do not believe at all in giving a person a bank account that should not be simply to boost my sales numbers.

The ethical decision that I have chosen for this assignment involves my experiences with another personal banker that I will call "Michelle." The biggest ethical issue for me with her is that she often opens bank accounts for people that really do not need them or she opens them the wrong type of account because she needs the points in that specific category. For example, if her points in the business checking account area are low, she will open a business account for someone when they really don't need it. It bothers me to no end because she is not upholding the core values that Bank of America teaches us as employees. I would rather have low sales