Bank aiming to retain staff despite growth in efficiency

Business

GREATER operational efficiencies achieved in the Bank South Pacific Group operations is unlikely to lead to redundancies, says chief executive Robin Fleming.
He was responding to how the bank would handle possible unemployment as a result of the increase in digital banking.
“As we move closer to the new core banking, there will certainly be efficiencies that we will be able to achieve,” Fleming said.
“The countries in which we would like to get the most efficiencies in is most probably going to be Fiji and to a lesser degree Solomon Islands.
“In Fiji we are making sure that we can position ourselves to the extent no one is made redundant.”
He said there would be some capping on headcount numbers.
“In PNG, certainly no intent or objective anywhere to reduce staff,” Fleming said.
“If anything, in certain areas, there is likely to be an increase in staff because the processing from the countries is undertaken in PNG. So we need more people who are trained in the IT system.”
Fleming said the transition to the new banking system would help customers save on banking fees.
“The data cleansing project we are undertaking in relation to us preparing for our new banking system has seen BSP reduce fees – particularly ATM and Eftpos fees – on a number of people who are on the older legacy Kundu account products,” he said.