How fast can you adapt to change?

In today’s global economy, the finance sector is no longer dominated by traditional banking players. Managing Director and CEO of Hong Leong Islamic Bank Berhad, Raja Teh Maimunah, understands fully how the market has evolved.  

With the introduction of new technology in the banking industry, she believes that this is an opportune time for younger talents looking for jobs and for companies to start innovating before they become obsolete. “If I look at the next 5-10 years from now, the real growth in the economy is digitisation. So if I were a young person looking for a job, what would excite me would be any industry that’s actually embracing digital technology,” she shares candidly.

Today’s digital era has changed the way the financial industry works. Non-financial institutions such as Google Pay and Alibaba.com are also offering financial products and services. This means that banks no longer face competition from within the financial industry but from also non-financial institutions. She goes on to add that it is “extremely important for the finance sector to innovate” and ultimately for talent in the finance industry to expect changes to their work.

Eventually, one day…you will never walk into a bank branch ever to take out money, transfer money, remit money but you would probably walk into a bank branch to get an investment product or talk to somebody.

In light of this, talents need to be able to adapt, pick up new skills and shift from working with products to working and interacting with people. They no longer will be expected to just service customers for certain transactions but to do more. The key question Raja Teh feels would be this:

How fast can I actually embrace, move and change?