Main focus: tellers and operations
Many banking forums take too lightly the expertise required to handle millions of banking and finance dealings which happens on daily bases. The tellers working on these financial transactions have an upper hand in determining the success or failure of the banking institution but are ignored. Duties of tellers are on many institutions similar only that on some instances their tasks are divided into various portions which are handled in different ways. In today’s digital world, tellers operations are defined by assigning permissions to access specified activities in the front office software which handles issues related to cash only. Other roles even though they are teller related get diverted to customer care desks or are directed to defined counters. It’s not a wonder to note that a quarter of banks employees are tellers since they carry out the larger portion of bank daily financial deals.
Teller’s duties
A bank teller is a person whom many people relate to when doing banking transactions. Their responsibilities range from cheque payments, cash withdrawals, cash and cheque deposits, cash transfers within and outside the bank, sell bankers cheques, receive payments on specified bills while some tellers may be allocated specialized tasks to enhance efficiency.
When starting daily activities, tellers receive cash from the head cashier which after they certify, the cash is used throughout the day and together with all other transactions, reconciliation is conducted at the closing of the day.
With the modern technology many banks have installed software systems which makes tellers work easier. Customer’s information is accessed with a click of a button which enhances customer services and promotes efficiency. Some banks allow tellers to perform basic customer service functions because of the integration of the computer systems unless services demand specialized personnel.
A teller should have outstanding communicating skill. This has become a requirement when being hired by a bank due to the day-to-day interaction with the public. Another requirement is that of mathematics ability. Even if a prospective teller may not have earlier handled cash, computer literacy is not optional. It is important for a teller to exercise accuracy, put more emphasis to details, be polite, pay special attention, and be unwearied while delivering services to public. Well served customers will always give a credit to the bank services in general. This is well handled by mature personnel who have the skill and are able to promptly pass the messages clearly to the customers enabling them to make sound financial judgments.
Cases of theft are passing unchecked and those responsible are not putting control measure to tame the act. This situation is calling for qualified, specialized and responsible individuals who are capable of stopping theft while marketing other financial products operated by the bank. The advancing technology is prompting for immediate changes in the banking industry hence the need for qualified personnel. Regulations, acts, and by-laws governing the banking institutions will only be implemented by qualified personnel.
Instances of Ethical issue
There exist a wide range of issues which contradict with the ethics of the banking industry. It may not be possible to analyze all of them but here is a common occurrence. A customer may present a cheque leaf for payment. The customer is required to wait for a few days before the cheque matures for payment, but puts pressure to be paid on the spot. Before a decision is made about the demand at hand a professional teller has things to check on. In normal circumstances the teller must check on the genuineness of the cheque leaf, and whether the referenced account is active. The signatures must be counterchecked, check any alteration, wordings, proper dates and endorsement on the back of the cheque. The account must have sufficient funds to cater for the transaction. Decision on whether to accept the payment to such an unexpected notice require the teller to give a thought to details. The operations of the banking systems must be understood which defines various levels of checks and balances. The tellers should be having all the knowledge to access the necessary information for fast and better decision making.
If some of the mentioned details will not have been put into check, then a miscalculated decision will be made and later on the transaction may become a dilemma prompting for an immediate attention to the ethics of the banking system.
- This kind of a situation can be handled by training tellers who might have not been hired professionally. Re-allocate tellers who are not delivering services appropriately.
- Refresher courses should be organized to equip tellers with the advancing techniques of banking and even the fast growing information technology.
- Many decision making instances should not be left to the tellers. The electronic software handling the banking transaction should be the determining factor on which areas the employees should be allowed to access and handle activities.
- Newly employed tellers should be professionally qualified and thereafter undergo strict scrutiny while under probation
- Incentives should be introduced and where they exist they should be improved while promotions are exercised on merit. This enhances personal instincts.
- Tellers should gather information from the customers and record them if they happen to have a doubt on certain banking activities.
- Banking institution should come up with more strict rules, more complicated software to control the new ways of fraud creeping in the industry to be implemented by the tellers
- The banks should acquire the new advanced electronics like fingerprint scanners for customers identification and verification. Since customers’ accounts are within the bank reach, the customers’ history can be an identifying tool due to customer banking practices. Tellers must always be on the look out to notice any incident of fraud.
- Professional and qualified tellers must have excellent communications skills to be able to interact with customers different demands. The standard of this person skill should go along with the newly introduced technologies, learn and understand rules and laws governing the banking and finance industry. This eliminates the tendency of relationship employments whereby basic skills were the only hiring requirement.
Supervisors should take a daily audit and if possible the tellers should let the balancing be done by a co-worker. In circumstances where balances in the computer system are not tallying with the physical count and the difference is not major the teller is expected to identify the problem. This helps to keep a close observation to avoid a situations which will be complicated if those little discrepancies are not monitored. If the differences are alarming, the teller performance should be closely monitored.
Works Cited
Boone, Louis E., David L. KurtZ and Erick Qualman. Contemporary business: with socialnomics. Hoboken: Wiley Custom Learning Solutions, 2011. Print.
Farazmand, Ali and Jack Pinkowski. Handbook of Globalization, Governance, and Public Administration. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2007.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Occupational Handbook (Bank Tellers)." 30 March 2000. University of Moissori-St. Louis. 24 April 2013.
