UBC Law Review

UBC Law Review

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Why a Bank Operations Manual is Critical


There are many reasons why a bank operations manual is very important.

Banks are one of the oldest and heavily used establishments in history, aside from agriculture and common marketplace businesses. For centuries, banks have stored valuables, important documents, interests, and currency for people.

Given the sensitive materials and items banks hold, and the need for security of these items, banks are one of those institutions that simply can’t afford to make a lot of mistakes.

Banks have a large set of rules, procedures and regulations about how everything is done, both in interacting with customers, internal affairs, and security. Training employees on these, keeping their understanding of them fresh, and making customers aware of what procedures are in place is a daunting task. This is why a bank operations manual is such a valuable thing when running a venerable institution like a bank.

A bank operations manual, properly designed, would have an easy to search table of contents, an itemized list of policies and rules categorized by relevance, and clear, easy to understand language.

Bank operations manuals should be crafted so that nothing is simply implied or possible to be misinterpreted by anyone competent. The benefits of having these manuals properly designed are nigh infinite.

 Benefits of a Bank Operations Manual.

The benefits of having a well-designed bank operations manual, printed and on hand are quite diverse.

Internally, they are a great way to passively train staff for a new position, or for starting work at the bank. The manual is also useful when unpredictable situations or questions come up when dealing with the public, the valued customers. A quick, easy to use reference like a bank operations manual makes handling these random situations far less troublesome.

When a customer insists on a certain privilege, or insists that the staff were wrong in handling something a certain way, showing the clause in the manual which in fact shows the customer to be wrong can stop a needless argument before it starts.

Lastly, in the case of an investigation where something unpredictable did go wrong, inquiries into the bank’s procedures and competence can easily be settled with an inclusive, comprehensive bank operations manual as well.