Favorable demographic transition in PSBs
Interestingly, the demographic composition of the banking sector (mainly PSBs) is reverse of the demographic composition of the economy. A major chunk of the banking officials are getting superannuated in next few years, The RBI has already termed the decade 2010-2020 as the “decade of retirement “for public sector banks. To have a smooth operation, existing players are increasingly spending to train their employees for more value added work. Besides direct hiring, expansion in banking sector is also going to create huge jobs in various support areas. In a nutshell, automation and the adjustment to digitization would bring a net gain for employment. Flexibility to adapt into a rapidly changing work environment is the need of the hour.
How SBI is empowering it’s employees in a dynamic environment
No doubt the skill requirement has been changing due to technological evolution in the financial industry. The intense use of technology demands renewed skills development of workforce which demands investments into training and manpower development by the institutions as well as the employee her/himself. Many firms have established dedicated programs to re-skill their existing employees. In case of SBI we have five apex training institutes and more than 54 learning centres which operate throughout the year with full capacity to update the knowledge and skills of our employees. Recently, we have opened another apex training centre, State Bank Institute of Management (SBIM) at Kolkata with global standards to endow with best in-class training and research in banking industry.
Future prospects of jobs in financial sector
Technology has been redefining the financial sector, making it essential for everyone to understand the evolving role of technology in financial services. Being head of the human resource department of the largest financial institution in the country, I strongly disagree with the common belief that introduction of advanced technology would eat up human jobs and would reduce manpower absorbing capacity of the sector in coming days. Rather if you see, employment in the financial services sector has been growing rapidly in the past decade and is expected to continue. In our bank we have been channeling more & more of our manpower resources towards areas like payment services, digital banking, alternate delivery channels, risk mitigation, big data analytics, wealth management & compliance & related activities like FATCA, AML & KYC. The Naukri Jobspeak Index that measures the hiring activity in Indian firms, shows that job hiring activity in the ‘Banking and Financial Services’ sector is highest among all the industries followed by the real estate sector.
Proliferation of automation has made some of the banking operations such as fund transfer, account opening, paying bills, generating account statements, ordering cheque books etc. online and with minimum involvement of the bank employee. The advancement of technology in the sector can be seen as a generational shift. I believe hiring in banks is likely to bounce back in coming days owing to expansion into tier II, III and IV cities. Recent report by Manipal Academy of Banking has highlighted that expansion in banking sector would create position for 18-20 lakh new employees over the next five years.
To be more precise, a growing demand for client facing and client servicing roles, business correspondents, sales executives and other banking professionals to reach out to the rural population is seen in coming days. Apart front staff for branches, as well as for functions such as operations, FT, risk management, compliance experts are going to get an increased demand for their services.
Mr. Prashant Kumar, Deputy MD (Corporate Development Officer) SBI, writes this piece for the latest edition of FICCI’s Financial Foresights.
Great post on the future jobs in the financial service sector. Private bankers, who will continue to have an important role in the relationship with clients, but will be assisted by more digital tools. Additionally, there will be an increasing demand for new types of roles within finance, from product managers to AI scientists. Thanks for sharing.