Bankers may not be required to complete continuing education courses throughout their careers like some other professions, but industry professionals agree that a bit of extra coursework can still give their careers a boost.

Today, more than 50 percent of Massachusetts adults hold a two- or four-year college degree, said Carla Patalano, graduate program chair, human resources, business and finance at the New England College of Business (NECB), so if you’re a banker looking to get noticed by a human resources department, a more advanced degree will set you apart from your peers, even if the job listing doesn’t require it.

“When you’re trying to fill a position … you may take a candidate who has a lot of experience and a candidate who has good experience, but has an advanced degree, [and] start to look at those two people as being equal, or potentially the one with the degree as being superior because it shows that commitment to move ahead [and] dedication to a particular field or industry,” Patalano said.

NECB, an all-online university that has been named the most affordable private college in New England by the U.S. Department of Education’s College Affordability and Transparency Center four years in a row, offers a master’s of science in finance (MSF) and an MBA, which can include a concentration in finance. The MSF curriculum was developed with input from an advisory board consisting of bank presidents, vice presidents and chief financial officers and is designed to expand on the technical knowledge bankers gain from a bachelor’s degree and working on the job, Patalano said. The MBA degree offers this training as well, but also focuses on developing skills like building relationships.

The Massachusetts Bankers Association (MBA) offers hundreds of education opportunities each year, both online and in person, in the form of day programs, certificates, lectures and webinars for everyone from bank directors to branch managers to college students interested in a career in banking.

“We definitely have something for everybody if you’re looking for it,” said Meghan McCarthy, manager of education at the MBA.

One of the association’s more unique programs is its New England School for Financial Studies, McCarthy said. The two-year program lets banks nominate the “emerging leaders” among their mid-level management for intensive training, she said. The program ends with a computerized simulation that gives students experience working senior management roles by running their own bank.

Robert M. Mahoney, president and CEO of Belmont Savings Bank, believes extra course work is most valuable for those looking to shift their focus within the industry.

“I don’t think [bankers] take full advantage of [continuing education opportunities],” he said. “There’s a lot that has to be learned on the job, but you can augment your fundamental skills like accounting, like corporate finance, like tax … in an educational environment.”

Beyond augmenting their skills, bankers who are motivated enough to seek out additional education opportunities absolutely catch Mahoney’s attention, he said.

“Those are totally my kind of people,” Mahoney said.

Training Future Lenders

While there are many programs available for bankers who want bit of extra education, not all areas of banking are served equally. Viable programs for training commercial lenders and credit analysts are in short supply, Mahoney said.

In the ’80s and ’90s, banks recruited students right out of school and put them through commercial lending training programs, but these programs have since ended and never been replaced, he said. With the current stock of experienced commercial lenders approaching retirement, banks need a new way to train the next generation.

There are some programs out there. Mahoney recommended Omega Performance, a national company with a specific training program for commercial lenders. It offers both online and in-person instruction – “if your bank is big enough, they’ll come in to do a class with 10 or 12 people,” Mahoney said – and courses offered by Robert Morris Assoc. and the American Bankers Association.

Both McCarthy and Patalano acknowledged this is a refrain they have heard from the banking community. The MBA has a commercial lending school and in recent years started a fundamentals program for commercial lending. NECB’s advisory board members have asked the school to create separate commercial banking, lending and credit certificates.

Boston University offers a master of science in banking and financial services management, which Mahoney called “as close as you can get to a degree” in commercial lending.

University degrees may be the future of commercial lending, after all. Mahoney said he’s spoken with his alma mater, UMass-Amherst, about “putting something together,” and Patalano agreed that it seems “natural” for banks to work with colleges and universities to develop the training programs they need.

Should universities ever develop this sort of degree, aspiring commercial lenders would be wise to take advantage.

“If you had degree in commercial banking, you would be snapped up [by banks] in an instant,” Mahoney said.

Email: asims@thewarrengroup.com