Crossing the corridors of the central office building in Athens, the characteristic positions, as well as the specialties of the managers we meet, do not at all suggest that we are in the offices of a system bank: data analysts / data scientists, business process software engineers, managers, experts in IT cloud, programmers in modern languages ​​such as Linux are just some of the specialized specialties from the wider IT field that are a pole of attraction for the international and, accordingly, the domestic banking sector.

“Most of the new hires taken on by systemic banks over the past three years as their digital transformation is in full swing are not purely banking, but mostly from the IT sector, but also from other areas such as cybersecurity and the ESG sector. Also, from the area of ​​compliance and risk management.” refers to “K” Bank employee. In terms of the number of new employees in these new sectors over the past three years, according to convergent estimates, collected “K” they cover about 1,000 people, not counting the employees of new banks that have started operations. Most of these young workers under 30 or younger have higher education.

The banking industry is also in demand for specialties related to digital banking, such as UX designers, social media specialists, lean manufacturing specialists, which is a new certified specialization of banking industry employees who take on the redesign of existing processes and tasks. Also specialties such as performance analysts, website experts, product channel managers, and product owner managers.

The demand for leaders with experience in green solutions and environmental protection in the broader area of ​​ESG has been created by the fact that each bank’s central strategy is to integrate fully measurable objectives relating to environmental, social and corporate governance issues.

However, robotics is gradually entering modern banking, which takes over part of the work that was subject to bank employees, thus freeing them up for more productive employment. A typical example is the use of robotics in automated and repetitive mechanical tasks and processes such as document processing and risk modeling, areas where the use of robotics leads to their simplification and homogenization, reduction of bureaucracy and a significant increase in task completion time.

According to banks, a large number of emerging needs for new specialties are covered within the organization after training and advanced training programs in order to successfully meet the new requirements.

However, as bank executives emphasize at every opportunity, in modern banking with new technologies and specialties, artificial intelligence and robotics, people will always be in the center of attention when making decisions and developing a strategy. Banks with employees who, in addition to specialized research and knowledge, have the ability to analyze, synthesize and recognize customer needs and communicate effectively with them will dominate the ongoing fierce competition.