I count myself lucky to have spent the last 20 years working in the City of London. For all that time, I?ve been an avid student of how banks raise, measure and manage regulatory capital. Over the years there have been radical changes in the way we calibrate bank capital, and considerable fluctuations in how the market values bank capital securities. But I believe we spend too much time focusing on regulatory and economic capital, while neglecting a highly valuable source of capital for the industry: human capital.

Finance is complex, highly regulated and constantly evolving. It's a people business. Any competitive edge an organisation enjoys starts with its human capital, and (increasingly) a significant component of institutional risk comes from people, and their conduct. With these rather obvious points in mind, the natural conclusion should be that the financial sector stands head and shoulders over others when it comes to developing human capital, i.e. investing in our people.

However, the finance industry in the UK spends less per head on staff training than the hospitality or construction sectors. In fact, finance ranks the third lowest of all sectors when it comes to investment in staff training.  The recently established Financial Services Skills Commission has been formed to address the growing skills gap, while in a recent survey, almost 80 per cent of banking and markets CEOs identified skills shortage as a major threat to growth.

The good news is that we have a very solid base to improve this situation in the shape of our historic Chartered Bodies such as the Chartered Banker Institute, the Chartered Insurance Institute and CISI. Allied to this, new digitally-enabled learning platforms are emerging that have the capacity to dramatically improve the efficacy of staff training in the sector. The pandemic is already accelerating the commercial adoption of these new technologies: 94 per cent of learning leaders have already observed that their L&D strategy has changed irrevocably as a result of Covid-19.

There is a big pay-off to getting this right: firms that offer comprehensive training enjoy a 24 per cent higher profit margin, and 94 per cent of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development⁴.

We built Finance Unlocked to solve this problem, by bringing the very best in class technology and levering the substantial riches of native expertise for which the City of London is rightly recognised. Our universe of content covers all areas of finance from core fundamentals to new and evolving concepts across financial markets, banking, money and economics, financial crises, regulation, financial modelling, financial technology, and ESG. Additional to this, core compliance topics will be coming onto the platform soon, which will be an excellent adjunct to the valuable work UK Finance does in this area.

If you?d like to learn more about how we can help take your staff learning and development to the next level, we would be delighted to engage.

You can contact the author of this blog, Rob Ellison, by emailing robert.ellison@financeunlocked.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UK Finance is pleased to announce a partnership with Finance Unlocked - the world's first comprehensive, on-demand video-delivered learning platform built specifically for finance professionals. The platform is a valuable addition to our member learning portfolio. To learn more about the value of Finance Unlocked to UK Finance members, please visit their website.