[1mm Financial Talk] Bankers' Stress Rising Alongside High-Interest Rate Era

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunju Lee] As interest rates continue to rise day by day, the work stress of bank employees is also soaring. Bank clerks who face consumers at individual branch counters are suffering from complaints related to ‘interest rates.’ It is common to be criticized for high interest rates during loan consultations, and they are complaining about excessive workload due to continuous inquiries from consumers looking for higher deposit interest rate products every day or repeated ‘product cancellations.’

A bank employee working at Bank A said, “Recently, many consumers have been harshly protesting, calling bank clerks who provide loan interest rate information thieves.” As the upper limit of mortgage loan interest rates at major commercial banks surpasses the 7% range and the high-interest rate environment becomes normalized, many consumers are blaming frontline bank employees for the interest rates.

In line with the banking sector’s competition to raise deposit interest rates, the number of consumers attempting to ‘switch savings and time deposits’ has surged, increasing the volume of processing work. As higher interest rate savings and time deposit products are launched daily, more consumers are canceling products early and re-depositing (rejoining). A bank employee working at Bank B said, “There is a shared sentiment that we have become like savings and time deposit cancellation machines,” adding, “For example, it is very common for a customer to cancel 5 products at the counter in one day and then rejoin 6 new products.” He also said, “Some customers even visit without considering whether switching or maintaining their current products is more beneficial, pressuring and forcing bank employees to make decisions.”

Additionally, as the secondary financial sector and mutual finance institutions strengthen the launch of high-interest special savings and time deposit products, customers are flooding branches with phone inquiries about ‘today’s savings and time deposit product interest rates.’ A bank employee working at a mutual finance institution said, “These days, most of the calls received at the branch are inquiries about ‘today’s’ savings and time deposit interest rates,” adding, “The flood of phone inquiries makes it difficult to concentrate on work.” Although these inquiries are inevitable because interest rates vary by branch, from the bank employees’ perspective, it leads to excessive workload.

Despite the flood of consumer complaints and inquiries, there is a shortage of frontline staff to respond. Commercial banks have continuously decided to consolidate branches, resulting in a shortage of personnel to serve consumers at frontline banks. A bank employee at Bank A said, “Five years ago, we used to conduct open recruitment of about 500 people annually, but in the past three years, the recruitment scale has been reduced by nearly half,” adding, “Moreover, a significant number of recruits have been assigned to digital-related departments, so bank employees at each branch are experiencing excessive workloads.”