Reference is made to our circular in March 2014, wherein we communicated the introduction of the ‘Retail Banking Professional Certificate (RBPC) - Foundation'. The context for the introduction of the 'Retail Banking Professional Certificate’ is 'The Banking Consumer Protection Principles’, which became effective on 1st September 2013. Principle 17.2 states that: " A bank should ensure that its employees have access to training and achieve the required levels of competency by enrolment in specialised programs for professional accreditation that qualifies them to deal with consumers”.

        As of today, 1607 banking employees have completed the required study and sat for the examination, with 1358 successfully achieving the required 'pass’ standard. We would like to remind you that the ‘RBPC’ must be achieved by all retail banking and consumer banking employees by 30th June 2015 . After this date, employees who do not hold the qualification cannot interact or work in retail and consumer banking, whether in a branch or head office department that directly or indirectly provides a service to consumers. The employees who must be qualified will typically include:      

          We encourage banks to coordinate directly with the Institute of Banking for the registration and examination scheduling for their employees. We suggest that each bank should complete and submit a plan to the Institute of Banking in order to meet the 30th June 2015 deadline. The Institute of Banking have training centers in Riyadh and Dammam, with a center in Jeddah due to open at end of October 2014.