The Importance of Microsoft Excel in Banking

Microsoft Excel, by far, is the most powerful and widely used analytical tool used by commercial banks, especially in the ever evolving regulatory and market landscape. The ease of using Excel coupled with its unlimited combinations of analytical computations enables an infinite capacity to do quantitative analysis, from statistical modeling of databases with thousands of records to application of complex estimation tools with user-friendly interfaces. In addition, Excel allows banks to respond more quickly to customer and client needs, to have better knowledge of the status of their financial assets, and allows a banker to service more clients with less work.

There wouldn’t be a day in any banker’s life without some kind of work being done on a spreadsheet.

If you want to learn how Excel is used in banking, then you’ve come to the right spot. As you might guess, one of the domains in which Microsoft Excel really excels is business math.

In this guide, we at VCA have broken down what we believe are the most important Excel usages for banking professionals.

BONUS NEWS at the end!!! Keep scrolling.

Data Entry and Automation

Banks make their money off of accurate record-keeping of financial assets. By using several features in Excel, including entering formulas once and cutting and pasting to new cells, and making cells with formulas that are read-only, Excel greatly reduces the time to make those records and the likelihood of errors.

Platform For Customized Applications While Excel's functions (like EDATE) are very flexible, Excel also comes with Visual Basic for Applications, which allows automation of routine tasks, such as end of business day copying of data from workstations to a centralized accounting check point. Most banks have built thousands of macros and customized programs on top of Excel's functionality, which would cost millions of dollars to replace if they were done again from scratch.

Create Graphics From Data With Microsoft announcing Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, it was clear that the face of its services was definitely changing. Excel’s ability to manipulate data and its formulas make it invaluable in the banking and financial service industries 一 despite its steep learning curve. Excel is also a great way to pull out graphs for presentations or check-in for inter-office communications.

Banking Related Excel Functions Excel has a number of functions that are designed around invoicing, such as DATE, and EDATE. These functions allow banks to track when payments are due on loans and when to send out statements. They also can be used to track maturity dates on certificates of deposit.

Enables Better Communication Microsoft Excel is one of the fundamental computer programs used for accounting and financial services. It allows banks to respond more quickly to customer and client needs, to have better knowledge of the status of their financial assets, and allows a banker to service more clients with less work. Rationalization of Formulas Excel spreadsheets are normally developed in response to a changing business enviornment e.g. you need to solve a certain problem. Where a spreadsheet has been good at solving a simple problem, it is often developed further to solve a more complex problem. In a banking environment full of intermediate and advanced Excel users, this can very quickly create a very complex spreadsheet full of inpenetrable formulas. Unfortunately these important spreadsheets become slow, inflexible and they can require a large amount of user training. There comes a point when the sheet's use has evolved to the point where it could be replaced by a newer, simpler spreadsheet. But even you can use Excel in your daily life! Managing personal finances can be a daunting prospect for most people, but having the right tools can help make it less challenging. Microsoft is launching a new Money in Excel feature that’s designed to help the millions of people who use Excel to track budgets and personal finances. Money in Excel is a dynamic, smart template and add-in for Excel that allows you to securely connect your bank, credit card, investment, and loan accounts to Excel and automatically import your transaction and account information into an Excel spreadsheet.

Keep track of your money
Get closer to your financial goals
Easily customizable to suit your needs

However popular Microsoft’s Excel is at banks, most bankers just use a fraction of the application’s capabilities. As data and predictive analytics become more popular, we still fall back on Excel as our go-to analytic engine. We chuckle when banks talk about using “artificial intelligence” when they are not using even the most basic statistical functions of Excel.

This is why we want to help you!

VCA instructors will teach you to write macros to replace in-sheet logic and formulas, and migrate data across from an older version of a file.

Banking is all about numbers, and so all about Excel. To master the art of Excel, the instructors at Vijay Computer Academy can help you out. Our Excel and Advanced Excel course will tremendously benefit anyone who handles large amounts of data especially:

CEOs / CFOs / CTOs
Branch Managers
Tellers
Supervisors
Senior Leadership
Marketing Officers
Anyone who regularly uses Excel, & wants to be more efficient and productive

Learn the most important formulas, functions, and shortcuts to become confident in your banking and financial analysis.

We are very thrilled and proud to announce that Vijay Computer academy is a Registered IT Apprenticeship Program by DOL now. This is an extension and expansion of our missions of bridging the skills gap and workforce development and empowering underserved communities through our world class IT education and training programs for last 30+ years.