MUMBAI: Around a quarter of the current private bank workforce will be laid off in three years due to changes in the way banking is done. Many lenders have already begun to identify new roles for lost jobs and to reassess and reskill employees for new positions.
Manipal Global Education Services, the largest educator of talent in the financial sector, works with banks that are rethinking the workforce. The increased adoption of digital transactions, accelerated during the pandemic, has reduced the need for conventional roles such as cashier.

Manipal Global chief business officer Robin Bhowmik told TOI that considering the top five private banks alone employ 4,000 people, it’s unlikely that three years later there will be nearly 1,000 jobs there. “The challenge is how do we retrain or upskill them? How do we even know what they’re good for when they’ve had a cashier for 15 years?” said Bhowmik. Banks turn to Manipal Global for its track record of training both recent graduates and their existing employees.
“Over the last 14 years we have grown to become the largest banking graduate school in India. For example, one in four employees at ICICI Bank is a graduate of ICICI Manipal Academy,” said Bhowmik.
Preparing for reskilling is an entire process that begins with a 360-degree company-wide assessment of upcoming roles over the next three to four years. “We carry out an equipment analysis. The process of upskilling employees is vital and we do this through a combination of programs including part-time training by trainers. It’s heavily gamified. We have a comprehensive assessment platform,” said Bhowmik.
New roles that Bhowmik says could emerge include virtual account managers who support customers via WhatsApp or video calls. Banks are also likely to start outsourcing some of the functions they used to outsource, like managing the core banking system, which would encourage innovation. New roles likely to emerge include data engineers. “The data engineering part was one of the big requirements of the organization: how to extract data from multiple sources and put it into a single engine?” said Bhowmik.
Last year, Manipal Global Education launched the Manipal Global Skills Academy, a guaranteed placement training company for global technology careers. The academy offers programs in banking, fintech and one to build a pool of Salesforce qualified professionals.