Who is a Bank Manager? Salary, Skills & Career

Do you have a keen interest in banking? Do you believe you will be good at managing clients? Do you think you can successfully supervise others? Then a career as a bank manager can be a suitable path for you. Even if you don’t feel confident about all this currently, upskilling and taking up different certification courses in banking can always help.

In this article, you will learn about the role, skills required and the career of a bank manager.

Who is a Bank Manager?

Bank managers oversee a specific branch of a bank, direct its employees, and manage the day-to-day operations. They are also liable for hiring new employees, evaluating employee performance rates, and communicating with clients and the local community to attract customers.
In addition to working in banks, bank managers also work for insurance companies, brokerage firms and consultancies. Depending upon the industry, their responsibilities will vary.

What Does a Bank Manager do?

The bank manager acts as the face of the branch and handles multiple responsibilities like:

• Hiring and training new employees.
• Developing strategies to accomplish sales goals.
• Establishing and maintaining a good relationship with new and existing customers and local communities.
• Managing and assisting the day-to-day work of the employees.
• Preparing the annual operating and expenditure budget for the branch.
• Connecting with customers to address their problems and providing answers to their queries.
• Familiarising employees and customers with the different financial activities.
• Working on building strategies for improving the customer satisfaction level.
• Documenting the branch details like deposit information, sales and lending data, services and feedback, errors and differences in deposits and success in marketing, and presenting to the higher authorities.
• Communicating the changes in plans and policies to the employees.
• Monitoring the sales targets, promoting, and marketing the organisation and its products for a higher level of customer service.

What are the Skills Required to Become a Bank Manager?

Thorough education and a specific set of hard and soft skills are extremely helpful to build a successful career as a bank manager. Let us understand these skills in detail.

Communication Skills

A bank manager always needs to communicate with the higher management, employees, and customers, to share various types of banking and financial data. Strong verbal and written communication skills help convey the data and report effortlessly.

Leadership and Management Skills

Holding a managerial position, bank managers need to handle a team of diverse bank employees. They need to ensure the team performs to its best abilities with utmost ease. This demands outstanding leadership and management skills.

Marketing Skills

Marketing and sales-related skills help sell the bank’s retail products to customers. Additionally, a good understanding of customer needs will help you recommend relevant products and convince them to buy the same.

Financial and Banking Knowledge

One of the major responsibilities of bank managers is managing financial data and building strategies for sales growth. For this, they must stay updated with the various regulations and banking procedures, including knowledge of the latest policies and government rules.

Customer Service Skills

A bank manager must have good customer service skills. Satisfying customers increase their chances of returning and purchasing more products or services. Customer service skills can help achieve sales goals and deliver a good banking experience to customers.

Problem-solving Skills

Bank managers supervise the procedures of all the branch employees. Thus, one should have strong problem-solving skills to address the team’s concerns, solve conflicts and motivate them to perform their best.
In addition to the skills mentioned above, a bank manager should have:

• Strong organisation skills to maintain track of sales records, long-term and short-term goals, customer contacts and meetings.
• Firm negotiation skills to market the bank products and services to customers for efficient generation of revenue.
• Excellent data analysing skills to evaluate the branch performance rates and develop strategies to achieve the set goals.mk

Salary of a Bank Manager in India

The salary of a bank manager in India ranges from ₹ 2 Lakhs to ₹ 15 Lakhs, with an average annual salary of ₹ 7.5 Lakhs [Source]. Salary, however, depends on the organisation (public, private or insurance), the location, and the experience carried by the individual.

Bank managers have various titles depending on the organisation and roles.

Some of them are:

• Branch Manager
• Investment Bank Manager
• Financial Advisor
• Financial Planner
• Service Manager
• Wealth Manager

The salary range and benefits also vary depending on the role. For example, a bank manager in a government bank might get additional benefits like leave travel allowance, government residential house for the complete tenure of the job, dearness allowance and many such perks in addition to the annual salary.

Career Scope of a Bank Manager

To begin your career as a bank manager, you will need to get a bachelor’s degree in finance or a related subject. You will have to start with a junior post, like an executive or assistant manager.
In this position, you will handle a smaller part of the operations like loans or transactional accounts. You will make your way up to the branch manager position depending on your performance and expertise.

However, you can even accelerate your career if you have the right skills and knowledge. You can acquire such skills with in-person or online finance and banking courses, which will empower you to manage your career proactively.

Emeritus India offers a range of programmes in finance and banking in collaboration with prestigious universities providing courses that will help you build an understanding of concepts such as banking and financial management, foundations of FinTech and associated risks, and fintech applications.

You can explore more such banking and finance-related courses and choose the best one for yourself.