Looking Ahead: Staff crunch ahead, NIBM readies PG course via video-conferencing

The National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), in a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, is planning to start a video-conferencing facility that will enable serving banking officials to learn modern banking techniques during office timings at the bank itself.

The move is aimed at countering the likely shortfall of staff in the banking industry in the next few years as several officers holding top management positions in banks are retiring. Major private and government-run banks will be connected to training sessions that NIBM will run during a year long e-post graduate programme in banking and finance (PGPBF). The decision on launching the video-conferencing facility will be taken at the board meeting of NIBM likely to be held in July in Mumbai under the chairmanship of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D Subbarao.

NIBM studies have shown that the some banks have not been able to meet the the staff requirements by bringing the same in line with the growth of their business. The banking institute's estimates also say that by 2015, nearly 80 per cent of top management positions in the rank of General Managers (GMs), Deputy General Managers (DGMs), Additional General Managers (AGMs) and Chief Managers will fall vacant due to the retirement of officers.

"Our estimates are that nearly 50 per cent of vacancies will be created, including those in the lower rung staff, by 2015," said Shomi Srivastava, faculty member, Human Resource Management (HRM), NIBM. The NIBM programme will beam out lessons on customer management and business growth with the learning similar to the present residential programme of PGPBF. While the fee for the programme will be decided in the NIBM board meeting, officials said the e-PGPBM would be one-year unlike the two-year residential programme.

Students will come for nearly three months to the NIBM campus in the city for training and exams. "Most of the tuition classes will be beamed directly to facilities created by banks at their premises and we have engaged a telecom provider to create the necessary infrastructure on the campus for the same," said an NIBM official.

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