Banks plan to create pool of technically qualified workforce

With banking services riding on the information and communication technology backbone, banks and the Indian Banks' Association are planning to prepare and maintain a roster of dedicated pool of trained information technology professionals.

Creation of a dedicated pool of trained IT professionals with suitable aptitude is to ensure that there is continuity of human capital and no disruption in services in the banking system, say industry insiders.

This move comes in the wake of the Reserve Bank of India's observation in its IT Vision Document that there is an urgent need to train people in banks across several levels to bridge the gap between the technological skill-sets required and the skilled manpower available.

“Banks do not have readily available skill-sets to handle technology in-house. Even if employees with aptitude for technology are trained, the challenge is to retain the trained resources,” said Mr Sanjay Sharma, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, IDBI Intech, the IT subsidiary of IDBI Bank.

Banks and the IBA are expected to have a roster of IT professionals specialising in areas such as infrastructure management; IT project management; process engineering; data/ information management; data warehousing and data mining; business continuity; information security management; and business intelligence and analytics.

In the run-up to the creation of the roster, banks have to identify potential employees with relevant IT competencies, provide them appropriate training on a continuous basis, monitor performance and re-orient them to specific tasks, and prepare career paths and succession plans.

diploma certification

Meanwhile, to increase the pool of technically qualified workforce in the banking industry, banks, especially from the public sector, are likely to make it compulsory for those wanting to join them as specialist information technology (IT) officers to have an advanced diploma in banking technology.

The advanced diploma certification course will be as per the curriculum of the PNB Institute of Information Technology (the IT subsidiary of Punjab National Bank) and similar courses offered by other institutes set up by banks with matching course curriculum.

The institutes set up by banks will create customised indigenous certification courses to impart specific knowledge and skill sets in IT/ IT security areas for various categories of bank personnel such as operational and managerial executives so as to create a large and diverse pool of requisite talent within the banking system.

> kram@thehindu.co.in

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