Banking Buzzwords: Digital Skills Gap

The digital skills gap - what is it? 

The digital skills gap refers to a global phenomenon related to employee skills. The gap is between the capabilities of the employees at a company and the digital skills that are required to use the systems in place.

During recent years, there has been an increasingly higher demand for employees with advanced technical skills, however, there are not enough employees that possess these skills. There are many causes of the skill gap, such as the rapidly evolving technology, educationally underserved geographic, demographics, and economical inequality.

When companies undergo a transformation by innovating systems or adjusting their business models to a more digital one, this instantly creates a digital skill gap for the employees.  

There are several ways to bridge the digital skill gap, like 

• Invest in training within underserved demographics 
• Invest in training employees 
• Recruit with a focus on skills rather than education 
• Invest in reducing the skill set needed by improving the customer experience 

The digital skills gap and core banking 

Core banking systems have often been around for a long time. Both the utilization and the maintenance of the system require in-depth knowledge. Making changes to a core banking system often requires either the involvement of the system vendor or a highly specialized employee. With the aging workforce, the skillset needed is increasingly rare.  

New core banking systems

Modern architectural requirements demand an innovation of the core banking systems. If you do transition to a more modular core banking architecture and you replace legacy core banking systems, focus on a system that  

• Has a strong focus on the best possible user experience  (UX)
• Enables non-coding configuration to decrease the specialist skills required to make adjustments 
• Has extensive training capabilities to accelerate the adoption by your current staff 

Keeping these aspects in mind will decrease the digital skill gap for your architecture and ultimately make you less vulnerable to key man risks and staffing scarce specialists.