ABOUT THIS REPORT

Rising default rates, increased provisions and lower bottom line growth has forced banks to cut cost dramatically once again – and is likely to soar to new levels in the current situation. With headcount cost of more than one-third of total operational cost, culling the workforce in a severe revenue downturn is most obvious, most imminent reaction among players. Often this is coupled with an infrastructure crunch. Outdated expense control and reduction approaches with an ad-hoc needs based approach in a changing market context take hardly into account a continuous and unified cost management which includes investment for the next growth cycle. This report identifies key elements of successful expense control architecture and emerging new initiatives, in particular to address indirect expense areas. It further indentifies a growth aligned cost strategy/structure and looks into the importance of employee engagement. Last, it evaluates the tools and technologies to streamline and enable more flexible cost controlling.