Confirmations Analyst
91% skill overlap
Your role
Reconciliations Analyst
Full profileYour role
- L3 salary
- Not published yet
- Upcoming dated changes
- 9 changes ahead
- Top critical skills
What the role does
A reconciliations analyst compares records that should agree and investigates every difference. The role reconciles positions, cash and trades between internal systems and external sources such as custodians, central securities depositories, clearing houses, nostro accounts and counterparties, and between front office, risk and the general ledger. It classifies and resolves breaks, escalates aged items and supports the controls that auditors and supervisors rely on for client asset protection and financial reporting.
Read a day in the life
A day in the life
The analyst starts with the overnight reconciliation results. A custody position reconciliation shows twenty breaks, most of them timing differences from trades settled late yesterday. These are matched against settlement records and closed. Three remain: a bond position differs by a small amount after a partial redemption, so the analyst checks the corporate action notice and asks the asset servicing team to book the missing event. Mid-morning goes to the nostro cash reconciliation, where an unmatched incoming payment is traced through payment messages to a client who sent the wrong reference. After lunch the analyst works on the reconciliation between the trading system and the general ledger before month end, explaining differences to product control. Aged breaks above the threshold are escalated with a cause and an owner. The day ends with updating the breaks dashboard and with a note to the change team on a recurring break caused by a static data rule.
Levels
- L1 Starting out
- L2 Independent
- L3 Senior or specialist
- L4 Leads a team or an area
- L5 Leads the function
Full level descriptions and job titles
The EFO level names are the common scale; job titles differ between employers.
| Level | What the work looks like | Typical years | Typical job titles |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 Starting out | Runs daily reconciliations with defined procedures, matches and clears simple breaks, documents items and learns products, systems and data flows under supervision. | 0-2 | Banks: Analyst, Junior Analyst, Associate (asset servicing), Trainee, GraduateAsset servicers: Junior, Specialist (entry), Officer |
| L2 Independent | Owns a set of reconciliations end to end, resolves complex breaks with operations and finance teams, manages ageing and trains L1 analysts. | 2-5 | Banks: Analyst / Senior Analyst, AssociateAsset servicers: Specialist, Senior Specialist, Senior Officer |
| L3 Senior or specialist | Designs new reconciliations and matching rules, leads root cause analysis and tool migrations, and represents the team in audits, client asset reviews and projects. | 5-9 | Banks: Senior Associate, AVP, Assistant ManagerAsset servicers: Senior Specialist, Expert, Team Lead (small team) |
| L4 Leads a team or an area | Manages a reconciliations team, owns the control framework, ageing thresholds and key risk indicators, and is the escalation point for finance, operations and audit. | 8-14 | Banks: VP, Manager, Senior ManagerAsset servicers: Team Lead, Manager, Head of Section |
| L5 Leads the function | Head of reconciliations or operational control for a legal entity or region, sets standards and the operating model, and reports to finance, operations and risk leadership. | 12+ | Banks: Director, Executive Director, Managing Director, Head of functionAsset servicers: Head of Department, Director |
Skills
Where the skill weights come from
Each role lists its skills with a tier and a weight. The weights of one role add up to 100 percent.
Source: the EFO role catalogue, built from the ESCO classification and reviewed by the editors.
The percentage is the skill's share of the role; the bars are drawn relative to the anchor skill, which is shown full.
Critical
- Trade lifecycleWeight 13.4%Relevant to you
- Collateral and marginingWeight 8.9%Relevant to you
- Settlement and fails managementWeight 8.9%Relevant to you
- Derivatives and how they workWeight 8.9%Relevant to you
- Period-end close and reconciliationsWeight 8.9%Relevant to you
Important and supporting skills 17
Important
- Trading and risk systems (Murex, Calypso)Weight 4.4%Relevant to you
- Attention to detailWeight 4.4%Relevant to you
- Investigative reasoning on anomaliesWeight 4.4%Relevant to you
- Advanced Microsoft ExcelWeight 4.4%Relevant to you
- Working to tight deadlinesWeight 4.4%Relevant to you
- Corporate actions processingWeight 4.4%Relevant to you
- Querying data with SQLWeight 4.4%Relevant to you
- Risk judgment and escalation instinctWeight 4.4%Relevant to you
Supporting
- Financial markets knowledgeWeight 2.2%Relevant to you
- Client service mindsetWeight 2.2%Relevant to you
- Professional written communicationWeight 2.2%Relevant to you
- P&L production and explanationWeight 2.2%Relevant to you
- Control mindset (what could go wrong)Weight 2.2%Relevant to you
- Ticketing platforms (ServiceNow)Weight 2.2%Relevant to you
Useful
- Data cleaning and validationWeight 0.7%Relevant to you
- Stakeholder managementWeight 0.7%Relevant to you
- Conduct and investor protection rules (MiFID II, FINRA, SEBI)Weight 0.7%Relevant to you
Processes
The work the role takes part in.
- Collateral and margining
- Financial reporting and accounting
- Market risk measurement
- P&L and valuation control
- Reconciliations
- Securities settlement
- Trade capture and booking
- Trade confirmation and affirmation
What each process covers
- Collateral and marginingMain
- Financial reporting and accountingMain
- Market risk measurementMain
- P&L and valuation controlMain
- ReconciliationsMain
- Securities settlementMain
- Trade capture and bookingMain
- Trade confirmation and affirmationMain
- Corporate actionsSupporting
Where the role concentrates
How AI is changing the role
Reconciliation is one of the most automated tasks in finance operations: rule-based matching handles most items, and machine learning now suggests matches for breaks and learns from past resolutions.
Read the full assessment
Reconciliation is one of the most automated tasks in finance operations: rule-based matching handles most items, and machine learning now suggests matches for breaks and learns from past resolutions. Manual matching roles are shrinking, particularly in service centres. Value grows in investigating the breaks tools cannot explain, fixing root causes in data and processes, and designing and testing matching rules. The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025 lists analytical thinking and technological literacy among the skills employers expect to grow.
Dated changes for this role
- ESMA guidelines on allocations and confirmations for T+1Relevant to you
- CSDR settlement discipline rules updated for T+1 in three stepsRelevant to you
- CSRD scope narrowed by Omnibus I; second wave reports from financial year 2027Relevant to you
- ECB Pontes: DLT settlement in central bank moneyRelevant to you
- EMIR 3 active account reporting every six monthsRelevant to you
Worth knowing
Salary snapshot
Salary figures are not published yet
The L3 salary range for this role, with its sources, will appear here when the salaries section opens.
Certifications
- FRM
- PRM
- CFA Program Level I
- ACCA Qualification
Concepts to know
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Do this job? Suggest a correction
Sources
General ledger (GL)The general ledger is the master record of all accounts of an entity, organised by the chart of accounts, from which the trial balance and financial statements are produced. Detailed transactions often sit in sub-ledgers that post summarised entries to it.
Corporate actionA corporate action, or corporate event, is an action by an issuer that affects its securities and their holders, such as a dividend, a coupon payment, a stock split, a rights issue, a merger or a redemption. Events are mandatory, mandatory with choice, or voluntary, and must be processed along the whole custody chain.
Asset servicingAsset servicing is the set of services an intermediary provides on securities it holds for clients after settlement: corporate actions, income collection, tax relief, proxy voting, class actions and reporting. It is usually sold together with custody, fund administration or depositary services.