How does one become a banker with out a college degree? Is there a proper certification track that could be taken or aqusition of any diplomas that are offered at ABA.com?

Start as a teller. You can't buy experience.

Agreed with Beaten Blind.

We have had many individuals progress within our bank by starting at the teller line. Often teller positions are part-time, which can work into your education schedule.

You can still find banks who will assist employees with tuition (tuition reimbursement). That is a win-win for both the bank and the employee. Typically, once a degree or program has been completed, the employee is required to stay at the bank for a specified period of time.

Good luck with your search.

I agree with beaten blind. Starting as a teller is the best way to start. You can use this position to start learning about regs. and to familiarize yourself with the banking system. If you find yourself at an institution you like, you will gain knowledge about their policies and processing systems. Also, as you learn, you will be exposed to most of the positions in the bank and will be able to identify where you would best fit.

I agree with the last two posts. I can tell you that I started out as a Teller and I have since moved into 2 diffrent positions. I am not sure about other banks but where I previously worked there were "inhouse" classes and books you could take to make yourself more knowledgable on the regs and diffrent types of banking, bankruptcy, mortgages and so on. Hope this helps out some.

So start at the bottom and work your way up. I don't know if i can afford this route considering that i would have to take a decent pay cut from my current IT position. Then start all over again. Is there anybody out there who entered the Banking field with out starting from the bottom? If you did, how did you do it?

I didn't start out at the very bottom, but close. You don't need a degree. I worked my way up to an officer position and have worked in a variety of departments, International, Treasury Mgmt, Foreign Exchange and wire. But since you are already in IT, you could probably start out at a very good position within a bank. I know our IT department has a different pay scale than the rest of us. It's much much higher. Many larger banks have web sites listing their open positions. Try googling to find sites.

I would like to transition from an IT possition to a Bank officer position. Is that possible?

There are many officers in the IT department. What do you want? You know that generally banks pay far less than other corporate jobs. I know people working on the line for FMC, GM and Chrysler that make twice what some officers make. I think at my bank officer starts in the low 40's.

At a bank there are many different types of officers - Lending, Trust, Operations, Financial, Audit, Compliance, Marketing, etc.

If you are not clear on the different types of areas in a bank and the area that interest you, I concur, get your feet wet and learn the industry. The teller line is the answer.