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Advancing e-learning implementation in Financial
Services conference
London, June 2003
Report by Andrea Miles, Business Director, Epic Group plc
A Europe-wide view of e-learning in the finance sector
This event provided a good snapshot of what is happening in financial
services across Europe, while also being compact enough to provide
useful networking opportunities. There was good representation from
continental Europe (particularly Scandinavia). Financial companies
represented included Fortis Bank (Belgium), Nordea HRD (Finland),
Sampo (Finland), Societe Generale (France), Danske Bank (Denmark),
SanPaolo IMI (Italy), with Royal & Sun Alliance, Morgan Stanley
and The Royal Bank of Scotland representing the UK. Input on the
regulatory side came from The World Bank, FSA, the Stock Exchange
and the Institute of Banking Education and there was also representation
from the supplier community.
Key learning points
Content - The majority of activity is based around compliance,
with particular emphasis on money laundering and regulation in general.
However, there is a move towards management skills, as many large
banks now have to manage at a distance. The use of collaborative
learning and technology is felt to be an effective enabler of this
very difficult management task.
Technology - A move can be seen towards Flash MX, although
this is more marked in continental Europe than in the UK, where
HTML is still the norm. Surprisingly, accessibility was hardly discussed
at all in this context; despite the fact that Flash is often not
used here precisely because of accessibility issues. On the learning
portal front there seems to be a preference for ASP solutions hosted
outside the firewalls (more so, again, on the continent). Plentiful
use is being made of asynchronous and synchronous tools, particularly
around tutor support and task-based activities for teams. Many are
seeing the shift of the trainer's role, as a result, to one of online
support and mentoring.
Blended learning - Some successes are being achieved with
'buzz' sessions; 20-minute face-to-face events used as a complement
to online learning. The pattern here is for an expert to facilitate
exchange of ideas and knowledge sharing within the group.
ROI/Evaluation - In running e-learning pilots, quite a bit
of work is being done using two test groups running in parallel
with different solutions (both IBM and Accenture made mention of
this method). The main measure used is how the learner feels in
relation to being able to apply the knowledge and skills they learned
post learning. Online questions were used to gather feedback from
the pilot group to be used as part of the business case for the
full solution.
Industry - the FSA presented a strategy for the Finance
Skills Council which is a move towards an industry-based portal
to allow all financial institutions to present best practice and
share knowledge. This was felt in general to be a good idea, but
it will be interesting to see to what extent individual organisations
are willing to knowledge-share with competitors - given that this
is an industry where the use of e-learning has offered some companies
(notably RBS) a considerable competitive advantage. Watch this space…
Resource - There seems currently to be more use of in-house
development teams on the continent compared to the UK, where the
picture is more mixed.
Selected presentations are reviewed on following pages.
Next>>
Royal & Sun Alliance: changing
the role of training
How Nordea made a success of
virtual teamworking
Fortis Bank discovers the
challenges of home learning
FSSC's big vision
The World Bank on lifelong learning
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