Industry Primer for Banking: Core Foundations

Banking sits at the center of the global economy, yet many professionals struggle to engage confidently in client conversations. This course equips you with the essential knowledge to navigate the industry with credibility and precision. Explore how banks are structured, how they generate revenue, who the key stakeholders are, and how regulation shapes strategy and opportunity. Review core banking terminology, key performance indicators such as NIM, ROE, and cost-to-income ratio, and the competitive dynamics that drive the industry. And learn to identify signals that indicate consulting demand and map banking pressures to specific opportunity areas. This course prepares you to ask sharper questions, build credibility, and position yourself as a trusted partner to banking clients.

Learning objectives
Describe the banking industry, including its definition, economic role, subsegments, and the strategic tensions that shape decision-making.
Use banking terminology, acronyms, and frameworks (Risk-Based Capital, Three Lines of Defense) accurately in consulting conversations.
Analyze the banking landscape: players, market structure, competitive dynamics, risk categories, the value chain, and profit pools.
Interpret key banking KPIs (NIM, ROE, ROA, cost-to-income, NPL, CAR) and explain what they signal about performance, efficiency, and risk.
Identify consulting opportunities by connecting customer needs, regulatory pressures, market forces, and risk landscape to specific areas where consultants add value.