Bankers at the crossroad (2)

Last week, I created an awareness of the need for banks as corporate bodies as well as individual bankers to pay closer attention to the paradigm shift in banking and have a serious change of mindset, as a pre-requisite to moving on.

This period of self-reflection is to identify the best-fit purposes of each banker or each bank and put in innovative systems to avoid being abandoned by the roadside.

Although there are always generic internal factors that recur in the business of banking which always necessitates restructuring, this particular period of the fintech revolution has destabilized plans that traditional banks had a decade ago.

Internal factors

Let us examine some internal factors which are generating the changes in the banking industry in recent years. Apart from the digital revolution, the new crop of talents being hired, made up of Generation Z and Millenials have new talents to drive digital banking but do not have the requisite people skills, resulting in teamwork issues.

Older and more experienced staff have people skills, but very much risk averse and slower in decision-making. The changing role of bank managers due to flatter organizational structures and additional indirect reporting lines by their subordinates to head office is also changing the setup. There is faster decision-making due to digitization and therefore, a reduction of errors.

However, the reduction in physical interaction with customers has been accompanied by pros and cons. For example, the lack of interaction sometimes results in less customer-centrism, reduced empathy, and over-dependency on machines. Some customers feel who depend on the human interaction, or rather, the “human touch” feel neglected.

Sources of bankers’ crossroads

Why are banks also finding themselves at a crossroad recently? Today, many banks find themselves lagging behind leaders in fintech and “Big Tech”—a catchall term for the top technology companies in a given industry.

Companies in these categories are using cloud-based platforms that are better at meeting the modern customer’s expectations. They’re faster, cheaper and more dynamic. For the first time in a long while, customers are the ones in the driver`s seat.

Competition is incredibly at an unprecedented pace with institutions, especially new entrants, offering stiffer challenges to others in the industry. Customers therefore have more choices than they have ever had; and because competitors make good use of technology such as mobile apps, the ease of movement or switching always presents itself to help them try something new.

This new dynamic has created a new kind of arms-race for the banking industry. Nowadays, the most successful banks have always been the ones with the best customer experience.

But today, they’re the ones with the best digital experiences.  So, the most successful banks in today’s world don’t just need to deliver a great experience: they need to be agile enough to keep improving it, too. Banks in “this future” must keep up with certain trends to stay in contention.

Boards of Directors and Management of banks have also reached a turning point. Some strategy sessions identify some of the following myriad of issues such as: competition from fintechs, saddled with the legacy software infrastructure, competition from Telcos in offering bank products, intensive monitoring by the Regulators, competition from Insurance companies, anticipated competition from cryptocurrency, loss of deposits from the financial crises in Ghana (2017-2019), the Covid 19 Pandemic which has become a catalyst for change, problems in restructuring & organizational change arising from mergers, acquisitions and consolidation of banks.

The turning point for bank staff

Here is a list of requirements that is keeping many bankers awake at night:

• Change of mindset
• Time for self-reflection
• Identification of strengths and areas for improvement
• Focus on enhancing soft skills for value creation
• Acceptance of change or endure until retirement?
• Preparing to self-upgrade to become more relevant to the new paradigm.
• Taking steps to acquire new skills/trade to be more useful outside banking.
• Enhancement of business networking skills
• Personal branding

Do not leave the future of your careers wholly in the hands of your leaders. Be bold enough to make an impact.

The turning point for bank management

At the crossroads, the following issues are still keeping the bank management personnel awake at night:

• Practicalizing a fundamental change in the  mindset of all stakeholders towards the transformation of banking
• Taking decisions on the alignment of staff to new organizational structure and job descriptions
• Res-shaping workforce and talent strategy
• Employment of a new breed of bankers with skills in creative design and programming.
• Re-tooling staff for optimum performance in the transformation journey
• Increasing collaboration between banks, telcos and Fintechs, insurance companies, for shared solutions in financial services delivery.
• Realistic job cuts to fit the needs of the banks.
• Planned compensation for exiting staff

Final remarks

This is the time for leaders to engage staff to be aligned to the digital transformation to get their support at all levels. Dear bankers, this is a gentle reminder of the paradigm shift in banking. What can you do about it? Are you ready to embrace change?

To upgrade yourself to be more relevant on the job, and not be square pegs in round holes. To collaborate with the millennials who are coming on board the fast-moving banking train?

They will still need guidance and mentoring because the machine does not teach those human qualities. Are you ready to assist the technocrats to infuse more risk management concepts in big data analytics, so that the world is not over-ridden with machines?

Extracts from Chapter One of “THE MODERN BRANCH MANAGER’S COMPANION”

In the first chapter of the book, (Reflections: Am I in the right profession?) it shows the need for managers to periodically review their personal and corporate goals, conduct a self-audit and pause for reflection:

Quote: “Are you aware that some managers get so used to the routine and simplicity that they hardly find time to learn new things?    Many people are on autopilot, with little use of initiatives and eventually become counter-productive in the long run. Long experience, without new learning opportunities affects one’s productivity.  An even bigger loss is that they may go through their entire working lives without discovering, let alone unlocking their true potential.

Winston Churchill once said that, “we should never waste a good crisis”. Perhaps this is the biggest gift of the current pandemic, that it provides us with the opportunity to rethink our potential and ensure that we are positioning ourselves toward the future. To be sure, it is too soon for most people to realize this, yet in the long-term, a significant number of people will likely end up in better careers and look back on their less meaningful and less engaging past careers.”