Preserving a strong focus on professional standards Second, future talent strategies must not lose sight of the critical importance of preserving a strong focus on professional standards to regulate conduct and behaviour. Over the last decade, Malaysia's banking industry has made important strides in raising standards of professionalism. This is evident from the number of accredited banking professionals that has more than tripled over the last four years. Customers expect banks to stand with them through the good and bad times. The economy relies on resilient banks performing a critical intermediation function through economic cycles. The standards applied to professional bankers must therefore also stand the test of time. This means preserving high ethical standards that underpin the character of bankers, while expanding standards on professional skills and competencies expected of bankers to respond to a fast-changing landscape. I commend the exemplary leadership shown by GBEStB in pioneering the development of global education standards in new areas such as sustainable finance and digital financial literacy. In Malaysia, we also see efforts by our own professional development bodies to raise the bar through initiatives to refresh the Chartered Banker programme and the development of the Certificate in Climate Risk (CICR). A strong focus on standards should continue to direct these efforts to ensure that skills and competencies acquired will be fit for the future. The industry will also need to be more deliberate about integrating a sound risk culture into standards adopted for banking education and professionals.
Aldous Huxley who wrote the "Brave New World" in the 1930s believed technology and automation would put workers on the fast track for better pay, better hours, better relationships with bosses, and a better workplace environment. (I will let you be the judge of how far that is true today). Science-fiction writer and futurist, Sir Arthur Clarke, predicted in the 1960s, "a world in which we can be in instant contact with each other, wherever we may be, and that it will be possible for a man to conduct his business from Tahiti or Bali just as well as he could from London." This is certainly true today. In the 1980s, many predicted jobs that would be extinct and replaced by robots, such as cashiers, bank tellers, receptionists, servers, floor workers. Today, automation has changed these roles for sure, but it may interest you to know that only one occupation appears to have been fully eliminated in the last 60 years – and that is the elevator operator! 1/5  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  Roy Amara, American scientist and researcher, in 1982 predicted that the greatest changes to come in the workplace would be cultural. He said, "the workplace would be more cooperative than adversarial, and workers will want intellectual and psychological fulfilment, not just financial reward". Certainly, it could be said of hiring today that being part of a team that creates a positive impact on society and encourages emotional and intellectual growth, has strong appeal for job seekers.