PROFESSIONALISING BANKERS

The recent failures of LVB, Yes Bank and PMC have underlined the need for managing banks professionally at all levels from the counter clerk to the manager.

- Manickam Ravindran

The performance of a bank is the sum total of the collective performance of its branches and the performance of branches is gauged by the performance of its workforce in key performance areas such as deposits, advances, profits and containment of non-performing assets. Banking is primarily an intermediation between savers and borrowers of the society and management of humans is central to banking. A successful bank presupposes the availability of abundance of professional bankers.

A professional banker is one who is good at relationship building and business development, as opposed to a bureaucratic banker who works within rules book which hampers business growth and a businessman banker who is reckless in lending and is hungry for taking blind risks. A professional banker is expected to be a well-rounded banker and a blend of a chartered accountant, lawyer, computer-literate, economist and an expert in behavioural science, all rolled into one to discharge his role effectively.

A job profile of a professional banker in the technology-driven banking era requires him/her to possess the following competencies to enable him/her to perform well in key performance areas such as resource mobilisation, credit deployment, profit generation, good housekeeping and complaint-free customer service.

A professional banker should be competent to perform the role assigned to him. He/she is required to possess academic and technical competencies.

Academic competencies

• Good understanding of broad spectrum of financial sector with reference to products, processes and performance

• Good understanding of regulations and their impact on business decisions