Friday, 8 April 2016

Emerging Trends... The Banking Sector (III)

Emerging trends unavoidably come pregnant with CHANGE. It is just that as change happens, there are beneficiaries and casualties. There are winners and there are losers. Any keen observer however, will not find it difficult to ascertain the fact that the automation in the banking sector has made the bank customers the biggest winners.
It has reduced the stress of going to banks and spending hours in conducting banking transactions, as one could comfortably use the ATM to withdraw cash without stepping into the banking hall. Now the customer can also choose... not to go to the bank at all using internet banking and various mobile apps. Also as automation advances, the cost of banking services decreases and a lot of hitherto hidden charges come to the revelation of the customer. Please note more so, that the banks still have so far been able to work up avenues by customers pay for more than they should in trickles.

This brings to the fore, the next big winner in the game, which is the investor in the banking sector. Looking at the trend, bank profits have been shown to have continue to grow with automation. This is coupled with the fact that the demand for liquidity superfluously intensifies with steady population growth and availability investment opportunities. Therefore the average bank investor expects increase in returns from his investment in the banking sector.

The losers however, have and will always be the unskilled and under skilled member of the bank workforce. Unskilled and under skilled can be relative at that point in time or relative to where the bank perceives it is going to. In the banking sector as of now, just about anybody can take up a banking job irrespective of what course the individual studied in the university. Banks are comfortable to take up any person so long as the people have a reasonable IQ they can work with to mold the person into the banker that will serve the need of the bank at that particular point in time.


This is because our educational institutions do not have the curriculum that is suited to the actual practice of banking, such that there is no disparity between a banking and finance graduate and a graduate of any other course. However this is gradually changing because of automation which is increasing the need for skilled people and also the fact that the banking public is getting more and  more sophisticated by the day. With the integration of our banking system into the international banking system, one time local bank customers being exposed to the global market  and generally, the banking public becoming more sophisticated, there is an undisputable need for a global banker. 

No comments:

Post a Comment