Shout out to this specific commercial bank for bringing in new ways to attract customers and to empower human resource! Laxmi Bank initiating a better banking environment!

Nepalese banks have always been tagged as the institutes that have reflected least creativity in terms of doing business. The lack of innovative products has always been a weakness of banks in Nepal. Especially, commercial banks are often targeted for their lack of creativity and innovation. Besides, the schemes and products, Nepalese banking industry has not been able to brainstorm ideas for an effective promotion and human resource management.

However, one bank, Laxmi Bank Limited, has often taken steps in order to ensure creativity in the way it attracts its customers and empowers human resources. Few months ago, Laxmi Bank Limited brought in a very creative way to advertise its fixed deposits. Going away from the usual conventional style of advertisement, Laxmi Bank referenced an advertisement with Game of Thrones, an American fantasy drama television series produced by HBO popular among a lot of youths worldwide. The series “Game Of Thrones” often revolves round the tagline “Winter is Coming”. When the final season of Game of Thrones ended, Laxmi Bank wittily promoted its advertisement as “Winter is gone; This summer, enjoy the new season with fixed deposit @9.25%”. The photo of the same is provided below:

Moving away from traditional ads, which typically portray couples discussing their children’s future, Laxmi Bank made an effort to target aspiring youth to open fixed deposits. Nepalese banks have done quite nothing to target youths as their clients. Laxmi bank’s this specific promotion campaign is an example to other banks and bankers as well.

One of the common tactic used by Nepalese banks to promote their services is to hire popular faces to become the brand ambassador of the banks. However, if we observe advertisements in the international sphere, there are so many simple yet creative advertisement ideas. Some of those are:

These advertisements hold the least content yet speaks so loud. In the first advertisement, the beak of the bird has been replaced by the cap of the pen. This typically targets the working professionals. Similarly, the second advertisement has used protractor to display a car in order to promote car loans. Finally, the waste of sharped pencil has been used to portray dreams of students. These advertisements are catchy and look decent in presentation. It is often said sometimes a few words can tell a lot of stories. These advertisements reflect the same. In Nepalese banking industry, we need more marketing head who think out of the box to attract customers.

Laxmi Bank also took a step recently that helped it differentiate from the rest. On the occasion of Children’s Day Event on 14^th September 2019, the bank invited children of its employees in order to celebrate Children’s Day with them. The event was celebrated with the theme “Bring your kid to work”. Human resource empowerment is a concept that banks in Nepal forget to adopt. Working in a bank can be monotonous to employees yet small events can often bring joy. Banks usually celebrate Teej, Dashain and birthdays with staff members. However, the way Laxmi Bank took a step ahead and asked its employees to bring their kids to work and distributed gifts is an elegant way to show that their organization cares not only about them but also about their family members. Most of the working professionals in banks are parents with kids. The late working hours in banks, urgent meetings and weekend trainings can hinder professional and personal work life balance of these employees. Usually, family members are the ones who have to face the consequences of these work life imbalances. The step taken by Laxmi Bank is an initiative to show respect to these bankers. The competition among banks does not limit only within salary range of employees anymore. The workplace environment is an essential factor that contributes the mental well-being of employees. Banks should not simply focus on salaries and bonuses but programs as such that will make employees feel they and their families are being looked upon. Moreover, in a country like ours, where families are culturally bonded, employers need to reflect how employees and employees’ belongings matter to the organization.

Photo source: LinkedIn profile of Head of human Resource of Laxmi bank

This article is simply a shout out to Laxmi Bank for its consistent effort in bringing in new ideas for the customers and human resources. Other banks should also come up with new and creative ideas in order to take the banking community to greater heights. Executives in banks should come up with such ideas that bankers will stop correlating terms like monotonous with job of banking.

Also, let us know your experience as a banker in the comment section below. What excites you most to be a banker and what makes you want to quit your job?

Disclaimer: The fixed deposit interest rate may or may not be valid today. The article is not sponsored by Laxmi Bank.