Present Perfect Tense vs. Present Perfect Continuous Tense

Question

I have a doubt about using Present Perfect Tense and Present Perfect Continuous Tense in the below example,

Catherine works in a bank. She _______ in a bank for five years.

I think the correct answer will be having the Present Perfect Tense. (May be I'm wrong)

"She has worked in a bank for five years"

But I have a doubt that, is it ok to use Present Perfect Continuous Tense since the action (work) is not stopped yet and still continuing (she is still working in the bank).

"She has been working in a bank for five years"

However it looks odd to me that if the sentence is like "She has been working", then the end of the sentence should be like this "since 2012",

Right?

Answer 1

Both are grammatically correct and in common use. There is nothing about the Present Perfect Continuous tense to requires it to end with "since...". It would be fine to write simply "She has been working." without any extra clause.

The choice of tense depends on what exactly you want to say.

If she has been working in a bank for five years, then she started at least five years ago and has continued until now and she continues to work. This is a little redundant in this example because you have already said the she currently works in a bank.

If she has worked in a bank for five years, that could have been any five years in the past. Maybe she worked for four years a decade ago and has come back to work for the last year.