Day 3: Digital Banking
1 - Introduction
Meet Mo and Abi J, our hosts for the day, who will introduce you to the world of Digital Banking with our team of experts from BT and Nationwide Building Society:
2 - Digital Banking with Kaiyee, James & Mo
Key qualifications: BSc in Chemistry
What does your job involve? My job is to help banks choose and buy the right technology to keep people's money safe. This might be helping make sure the bank branches across the UK can connect to their head office, providing headsets so the bank's contact centres can speak to their customers or helping find a solution to stop scammers from stealing people's money.
How did you get into your current role? I joined BT many years ago on a graduate scheme. I've done lots of different jobs in BT; from putting in new people systems and designing policies; managing a team of people who looked after the text message voting system for X-factor, to my current role looking after banks.
What did you want to be when you were younger? When I was very young I wanted to be an inventor which led me to do a science degree. I realised that instead of working alone in a laboratory with test tubes, I liked problem solving with people and technology.
What do you do outside work? I love trying out new things and being outdoors. I have two children and spend my time keeping up with them, whether that's skiing, surfing, cycling, golf or keeping up with the streaks on Duolingo... I am there!
Key qualifications: BTEC Extended Certificate (Computing; Games Development & Cyber Security), A-Levels in Politics and Computer Science. I'm currently working towards my degree with the BT Apprenticeship.
What does your job involve? My job is to help companies by assessing their networks and helping to design and build improvements in them. Enabling companies around the globe to have faster and more reliable access to their systems that makes their job easier, but also as securely as possible.
How did you get into your current role? As it came close to the end of college, I knew I wanted to do something other than full-time education and start to make an impact. I knew that I enjoyed 'Networking' during my computing classes in college, so I decided to apply for the BT Apprenticeship in Network Design.
What did you want to be when you were younger? When I was younger, I was particularly interested in looking at how we can secure buildings or computers so I would say something in security would have been much more of a goal of mine when I was younger.
What do you do outside work? Outside of work, and something that I have been doing since I was in high school, is game development on the Roblox platform. Since starting that I've been able to work on a few collaboration games between creators and brands.
Key qualifications: Bachelor of Arts - Music Composition
What does your job involve? My job is all about keeping our customers happy and finding ways in which we can help them use technology to reduce their costs, speed up their business, and deliver a great experience to their customers. This has me doing something new every week and learning new things all the time.
How did you get into your current role? I started doing Telesales when I was at University to fund my degree and found that I had a knack for engaging and connecting with people. After university I joined a graduate sales program with BT where I have had great opportunities to develop myself and my professional capabilities over the years.
What did you want to be when you were younger? A great composer of art music (what most people think of as classical music).
What do you do outside work? I still keep up with my music and play guitar and piano. I have a virtual reality gaming setup that I spend a little too much time with. I also love playing chess and tend to play about 5 hours a week.
What does Digital Banking mean to you?
It means that we have a chance to improve the way that everyone interacts with their finances. It means improving the services that are currently on offer, adding new services but also improving accessibility to these financial services. Such as the ability to visualise finances on a much broader scale, easily look at what you are spending and where, and see which products may be more beneficial to you in a visual format rather than numbers.
What would a bank use a company like BT for? How does BT help banks go digital?
We can help to transform their IT infrastructure in order to reduce the cost of managing their IT estate, or do new innovative things with it. We provide networks that allow their business systems and employees to interact with each other securely, or provide contact centre solutions that help them improve customer experience and engagement. We can also assist banks by helping them to achieve their sustainability goals through Artificial Intelligence; analysing the amount of energy required to run their systems and services, helping them to not just be environmentally friendly but also help to reduce their costs as well.
3 - Have a go activities
4 - Career profiles
Key qualifications: Business Management certification
What does your job involve? I am responsible for 80+ project managers and technical engineers delivering services to our customer. I absolutely love the people I work with, and no two days are the same which makes it very interesting. The challenge of delivering on time and within budget is also very satisfying.
How did you get into your current role? Over the years I have had many roles including in accounts and customer services, however I found that I had a real passion for leading and supporting people. I started as a technical team/people manager of 25 network designers and implementers. I really enjoyed seeing them develop and grow within their roles, looking for continuous improvements of processes, making things smarter and simpler. Due to organisational changes, I have grown, developed and adapted into this new role which I thoroughly enjoy.
What did you want to be when you were younger? A Primary school teacher because I love children and people.
What do you do outside work? I have a large family, therefore I really enjoy family time and seeing friends. I have a treadmill at home that I use up to 5 times a week because I don't want to be out walking when the weather is bad. I also have a touring caravan and spend a good few weeks a year “Glamping” around Europe in it, it is like a home from home.
Key qualifications: Pg in Marketing and several professional higher diploma qualifications in Advertising, PR, and Media
What does your job involve? Leading and accountable for BT's most complex global strategic opportunities (both acquisition and renewals) in the Banking and Finance sector. The deal value is normally in the region of £20million plus.
How did you get into your current role? I came up through Account Management and Specialist roles. I have also spent time in BT Strategy and Marketing teams.
What did you want to be when you were younger? Advertising Exec – which I achieved early on in my career. I landed my first work experience with Harvey Nichols at sixteen. I wasn't living in London at the time so that involved a long commute from Somerset daily. I so wanted that placement!
What do you do outside work? I love to travel and try to find new destinations/interesting places to visit. This year I took my family to the Middle East for three weeks travelling through different countries which was wonderful.
5 - Nationwide Building Society
Key qualifications: Foundations Cyber Security – Stanford University
What does your job involve? Analysing systems and new applications for their security risks and flaws. Thinking like a hacker to find ways into the systems.
How did you get into your current role? I joined a career changer programme with Nationwide Building Society. They took my personality over qualifications and trained me on the job for 18 months. Prior to working in Technology I was a retail manager.
What did you want to be when you were younger? When I was younger I wanted to be a Marine Biologist. Subsequently I found out I was colourblind and this wasn't a great fit for identifying fish underwater!
What do you do outside work? I am a fanatical runner. I partake in any event from 5km to Ultramarathons. Specifically I enjoy harder endurance events, recently completing a 24 hour running race!
Key qualifications: Honours in Computer Science with Information Security from University of Glasgow.
What does your job involve? Helping make systems secure by patching flaws and issues that otherwise could be exploited by hackers.
How did you get into your current role? A degree at university which led me on to being a cyber-security developer, lead scrum master across a full-stack of technology (mainly in the JavaScript sphere). Security has always been my passion, so I knew I wanted to gain the experience as a developer and then use that to help other teams to secure the technology, making my role in Nationwide perfect.
What did you want to be when you were younger? I've always thought I would have made a good policewoman or fire-fighter!
What do you do outside work? I'm a competitive amateur boxer, so if I'm not with my family, I'm likely in a boxing gym or out running.
Key qualifications: Masters in computer based learning and training, CIPD member and Executive Coach.
What does your job involve? I work for Nationwide Building Society acting as a point of contact for Early Careers / Tech Talent. I oversee the Technology Development Programme (TDP). The TDP is the IT development programme for tech talent - including graduates, career changers, apprenticeships, industrial placements and summer interns.
How did you get into your current role? I started as an IT trainer, ran my own IT Training business and worked as an IT Trainer / manager for the Wiltshire police. Over the last decade or so I've worked for Nationwide in various training, operational and tech talent roles.
What did you want to be when you were younger? A professional football player or architect. I didn't expect to grow up and become a training/talent manager!
What do you do outside work? E-sports and gamer, 7-a-side football player and I enjoy road cycling.
Key qualifications: Chartered Management Accountant (CIMA)
What does your job involve? Shaping the changes of an internally used IT tool which enables agile software development. I love building relationships with my customers, getting to know how they work, and helping their work organisation be more seamless and simple through changes both to configuration and to their practices and approach.
How did you get into your current role? I actually got into this role organically: the person who was meant to start it couldn't, and I was the only one with the knowledge to step in. I trained as an accountant, it was a safe choice. But it wasn't for me and I had the opportunity to move into, then around, a variety of IT roles.
What did you want to be when you were younger? I wanted to be an architect, until I realised it was a very long course, followed by years of telling people that their dream house or extension didn't meet regulations.
What do you do outside work? Having a family doesn't leave a lot of ‘me' time. I do enjoy design work so in my spare time I combine this passion with ability and necessity, sewing winter coats for the dogs or making things to sell for fundraisers.
Key qualifications: Masters in Maths for Finance (MMath)
What does your job involve? I look after the tools that we use at Nationwide to ensure that data is well understood and has good quality. The best bit about my job is helping people to visualise where their data comes from and is used elsewhere within Nationwide.
How did you get into your current role? Whilst I enjoyed doing maths which led to me choosing to do a Masters degree in Maths, I was still uncertain about what career path that would take me on. This meant that after university, I was applying for various different types of jobs but I didn't expect that I would find one that I liked at first. Luckily, I found that my first job was something that I was both good at and enjoyed as I quickly learned how to code and use the analytical platform called SAS. This job was as a junior data scientist at a bank. Since then I've progressed through various roles using SAS. This has either been as a data scientist or a data engineer. What I think made a difference is that I took the time to understand the data. This knowledge then helped me to look at the data and be able to see patterns or the absence of patterns that I would expect. This helped me to tell a story about the data and has helped get me to where I am today.
What did you want to be when you were younger? A train driver. I used to love playing with my Brio train in the 1980s!
What do you do outside work? I have a wonderful family of my wife and son. In my spare time I enjoy running for my running club in road and cross country races. I'm currently trying to learn to solve the Rubik's Cube in under 60 seconds.
What does Digital Banking mean to you?
24 hours a day, 365 days a year access to my money! Whilst traditional high street branches still have their place for people seeking more complex finance advice and products, the increasing use of mobile and internet banking means our customers expect to buy things, transfer money and check their finances in real time using a pc or phone.
Where can you see Digital Banking going in the next 5-10 years?
Financial services are becoming more and more experienced at using technology to bring a human touch to Digital Banking. We've already seen the use of video conferencing to help people buy houses, get personal loans and provide financial advice to get the most return out of their savings. In the future I can see banks and building societies increasingly using AI, avatars, and digital currencies instead of hard cash. They will also be working on improving more personalised online experiences to better understand and help their customers. Cyber Security will always be at the forefront of protecting people's money, so the fight against criminal activity will get more sophisticated - aided by the use of biometric validation, AI and real time monitoring of financial transactions to keep people's money safe and secure.
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