With huge spending power and thousands of employees, what could one of the UK’s largest banks possibly learn from students?
The answer, in a world that is being rapidly reshaped by technology, could be: quite a lot.
At least, this is what Santander is hoping for as it runs a competition asking students and recent graduates to help it to crack some of the financial sector’s biggest digital challenges.
Baroness Vadera, the bank’s UK chairman, told Times Higher Education that the competition amounted to recognition that, when it came to technology, young people were often “better at it” than their older peers.
“I think younger people are…of a generation [for whom] this is all very instinctive,” Lady Vadera said. “If you’re inside a big organisation, you are all talking to each other, then you start to think in the same way, so I think it’s fantastic to have external input.”
The Big Ideas competition asks students to tackle challenges including semantic search, allowing bank staff to access customer information more quickly; digital authentication, ensuring online transactions are secure; and the incorporation of virtual reality into financial services.
Following the launch of the competition last year, 13 entries have been shortlisted. Prizes of up to £5,000 are on offer for the best ideas, with Santander also looking to help entrants to develop their proposals into solutions that could be commercialised.
The competition reflects how the types of skills being looked for by banks in potential employees have changed; far from just needing bankers, technological experts are needed too.
But it also reflects the sorts of experience that Lady Vadera believes to be important for the wider workforce, with a shortage of graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics being a particular issue.
“We have a productivity problem in this country: we are less productive than France and we have the worst skills gap in Europe, so we are not going to solve this unless we are able to create a better skilled workforce,” the peer said. “A lot of the answer to that comes from education and some of it comes from how employers motivate their employees because…people already in work have to be constantly upskilling and learning to keep pace with change.
“[But] I think it’s really critical that employers focus on working with universities and other higher education organisations to get employable skills into the workforce.”
The bank already works closely with scores of UK higher education institutions through its Santander Universities initiative, offering scholarships, grants and support, stretching as far as advice on curriculum design, if requested.
Entrepreneurship is another attribute that Lady Vadera is keen to see encouraged in students, and she said that the competition would tap into what she described as the “Dragons’ Den generation” who were enthusiastic to start their own companies after witnessing the success of technology entrepreneurs such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Lady Vadera, herself a former investment banker and a minister in the last Labour government, said it was good that the most talented graduates did not go only into the financial sector.
“I think there’s a healthy move now to going back to wanting to set up businesses and wanting to be in different sectors,” she said. “I think it’s a really good thing for the economy because there is a sense that you’re going to be building something; you’re going to be greening the economy [and] dealing with the infrastructure problem.
“There is a different call now which will encourage more people to take an interest in sciences, technology, engineering and maths.”
Lady Vadera also acknowledged that a continuing issue was fair access to top careers, be it in banking or in the technology sector. Widening access to work experience and nurturing the talent of applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds would be particularly useful, she said.
“[Industries] are not going to succeed if [we] don’t tap into the potential of everybody,” she said. “Just tapping into the potential of a segment of the population isn’t going to make up the productivity gap.”
In numbers
£5,000 – on offer for the best proposals entered in Santander’s Big Ideas competition
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Robert Gordon University
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University of Bedfordshire
The stigma and shame associated with alcohol abuse is stopping drinkers over 50 from seeking help, according to a new study. A survey of 16,700 over-fifties led by the Substance Misuse and Ageing Research Team at the University of Bedfordshire found that one in four said that they would not tell anyone if they needed help and nearly a quarter of respondents aged over 65 thought that those with alcohol problems should feel ashamed.
Newcastle University
A major new £3 million project, involving all five of North East England’s universities, is being launched to explore how the creative, digital and IT sector can be developed to play a key role in the region’s economy. Creative Fuse North East is jointly funded by the universities of Durham, Sunderland, Teesside, Newcastle and Northumbria, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The institutions, led by Newcastle University, will work with the 12 North East local authorities to research how the CDIT sector can ensure that it has the right skills for a sustainable future.
Goldsmiths, University of London
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University of Westminster
Three film-makers connected to a London university have been nominated for Oscars, which will be awarded later this month. Joshua Oppenheimer, reader in media, arts and design at the University of Westminster, is shortlisted in the Best Documentary category for The Look of Silence, about the 1965 genocide in Indonesia, as is Westminster alumnus Asif Kapadia for his film Amy, on the life of singer Amy Winehouse. Film graduate Shan Christopher Ogilvie, who produced the short film Stutterer on a budget of just £5,000, has also been nominated in the Live Action Short Film category.
London Metropolitan University
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University of Essex
The University of Essex has opened the first zero-carbon business school building in the UK. The £21 million space, which is the new home of Essex Business School, is part of the institution’s 43-acre research and business park Knowledge Gateway. More than one tonne of carbon is saved per day through the building’s energy-efficient design and the use of low-carbon technologies. The building was launched by chief executive of the Open Data Institute, Gavin Starks.
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Print headline: Santander banks on youth to deliver digital dividends
