The Oliveboard, India’s largest online test preparation platform for Banking and Government courses with over one million subscribers unveiled a study report that reflects a growing trend in the number of women applicants from tier-II cities opting for banking.
In urban cities, banking is already a sector dominated by women in various aspects. Chanda Kochchar, CEO, ICICI; Arundhati Bhattacharya, CMD, SBI; Shikha Sharma, CEO, Axis Bank, and Naina lal Kidwai, GM and Country Head of HSBC are just a few examples of the long list of senior women executives in this sector.
The study shows that:
According to a KPMG and Google report, in May 2017 India’s online education market is set to grow to USD 1.96 Billion and around 9.6 million users by 2021 from USD 247 million and around 1.6 million users in 2016. And specifically, the online test preparation platforms are slotted to be the fasted growing category within online education with a compounded CAGR of 64 per cent.
As per industry experts, hiring female employees is encouraged in the financial sector as they bring about a balance in the operations, as well as the work environment.
Abhishek Patil, founder and CEO, Oliveboard, says: “We have been observing an upward trend in the number of women registrants on our platform over the years. This is also a reflection of technology adoption by women in general from tier-II markets. With 80 per cent of the women subscribers in banking coming from tier-II cities, this clearly signifies the growing popularity of banking as a profession in these cities.”
Adds Nimisha Agrawal, an Oliveboard subscriber from Baroda: “Banking and finance is the foundation of an economy and we hence find the opportunities exciting and purposeful. Women generally find banking to be a conducive career as it typically provides a lot of stability and growth opportunities. With the help of online test platforms, working women can now further their growth prospects in this sector easily.”