DEPLOYING RESOURCES

Resources are always limited and scarce. Effective management of a bank involves putting people, investment, or processing power where it matters most.

When considering where to deploy their resources, whether it is an investment in technology or human, banks should examine and assess how and where they currently do so using four criteria:

Where the customer is asking: In a customer-centric bank, the customer has a strong influence on where resources are deployed through the insight that the bank creates by understanding and interacting with them.

Where there are bottlenecks: Customer experience is a key differentiator.

Bottlenecks can happen in the most organised and well-managed banks, so banks must constantly monitor their processing and service delivery levels, taking swift action if deviation occurs.

Regulatory compliance: For most banks, regulatory compliance is an ongoing requirement that ranks highly when resources are deployed. Failures to comply with regulations whether ant-money laundering or data protection or any breaches in either leave the bank facing significant fines, bad publicity and loss of customer confidence.

Where the bank is currently losing money: This includes stemming losses due fraud or cyberattacks, fixing inefficient processes, avoiding credit losses though robust evaluation and monitoring. It also includes proactive collection of overdue repayments, and the withdrawal and closure of old products or services that are used by few customers that still demand resources to deliver and maintain them.