PREVIOUSLY, in the banks, we were depending on the bank's own resources to provide the bank's services. The banks were a fortified bastion which no one can approach but those with interests. The one, who was wandering in the bank's paths, was either an employee in this same bank, an inspector from the Central bank, an auditor, a representative of a bank or a client standing before the customer service personnel or the treasury employees (tellers). However, the situation has changed significantly these days. You can see people in the bank who are not among the above-mentioned categories. Why is that? Who are those new people present in the bank's halls and are not among above-mentioned categories? In fact, the present banks, and many other organisations, do not now depend on their human resources in some supportive functions. Instead, they depend on external resources known as outsourcing or buying a service from a third party through external companies which are contracted with by inviting offers from them to provide those services. The tender is awarded to the company with the least cost, the best service, the most committed and which has a good reputation in the service it provides. But, what are the services, which the bank refers to a third party so it does not provide them by itself? As for the cleaning work, for example, the banks found it is inappropriate to appoint cleaners who would be changed from time to time according to their performance and their commitment to their work. In addition, the bank bears their social security contribution payments, health insurance coverage and bonuses and incentives payments similar to those paid to all bank employees. The bank deemed appropriate to bring people who can do that through specialised companies, which have proliferated recently. These companies agree with the bank on the method and the timing of cleaning, as well as the number of the workers who are going to perform the cleaning job. The company provides those workers according to a contract signed by the bank with this specialised company for a cash amount to be paid on monthly basis. There would not be any relation between the bank and the workers of that company who do the daily and periodic cleanings for all the areas occupied by the bank. Those workers would not, in any way, abide by the bank, its rules, instructions and internal regulations. There are also the transfer of cash operations between the bank and other banks, on the one hand, and among the branches of the bank on the other hand, through a company specialised in cash transfer and approved by the Central Bank. The bank contracts with this company and makes it sign on its commitment to matters that guarantee the accuracy and soundness of work, the names and identities of those who receive and deliver the cash and updating their data and signatures in a very precise manner. Dealing with them will be on the basis mentioned in the contract concluded with them. The payment should be in accordance with the number of the cash transfers which are sent or received. There are also the operations of security and guard duty which are carried out inside and outside the bank by companies specialised in this field. The service of sending the account statements to the clients, as well as delivering and receiving mail among the various units of the bank… etc, is also bought from a third party Thus, most of the logistic services provided to the bank are carried out by entities outside the bank, represented by specialised companies through Buying a Service System. These services are, as stated before, the services of providing security and guard duty to the bank facilities, cleaning functions in all the bank's units in the headquarters and the branches and transferring money from the branches to other destinations or among the branches. Providing these services by entities from outside the bank, represented by specialised companies, does not mean that the competent sector, which is often the Administrative Affairs sector in the bank, has become isolated from those services, but it is responsible before the bank's management for choosing those companies, entering into a contract with them, their good performance and following up that performance. With the spread of Buying a Service from others, outsourcing, in the banks, which is a matter that our generation was not used to, I expect that the next generation will witness the provision of (take away) and (home delivery) services in the banks!
From a bank manager's diary (LXIV) [email protected]. Mahdi is a veteran Egyptian banking expert
