The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly impacted businesses in many ways. With the number of positive cases rising globally, its effects are evident in businesses, employment rates, and health care systems. This is why financial support is needed from these countries’ governments since industries’ strength is reducing in various sectors. Revenue generation has suffered as a result of this crisis.
In light of this, Awaken Intelligence launched an investigation on the pandemic’s effects across the UK and the US Businesses within financial sector categories of banking & money, investment & wealth, real estate, insurance, credit & debit services, and accounting & tax, and the full findings of the study can be seen at Boom or Boost by Awaken.
The first half of this article provides a specific insight into how the pandemic impacted banking services. The second part of the article will discuss which companies managed to survive despite all the issues associated with the pandemic.
How has the Pandemic Impacted Banking Services ?
In April, the Bank of England governor spoke to the British government concerning businesses affected by the pandemic. He discussed their need for financial support to prevent an economic recession.
Numerous London-based companies have experienced a fall in their market value. To ameliorate losses, the Bank of England’s interest rate was reduced from 0.75% to 0.25%. To further stimulate the economy, it was later reduced to 0.10%. This was beneficial because the frequency of bank loans rose due to the pandemic. The UK’s debt rating was in turn downgraded from AA to AA-.
For banks across both the UK and the US, branches would have to alter their operation processes and place a big emphasis on promoting their mobile apps and online banking services because they wanted to encourage customers to be safe and bank online rather than have customers attend outlets unnecessarily.
Due to branch closures and opening hours reduction times for banks, their contact centers have been busy now more than ever as customers are having to resort to other means of help rather than heading to the branch for the in-store customer service experience that they would usually be accustomed to. This can perhaps explain why the demand for banking and money services increased by 204% in the UK for the period of January to June 2020 compared to 2019, likewise, the US saw a 148% increase during the same period as stated in Awaken’s study.
Companies that Were Able to Survive the Pandemic:
Despite all the financial issues and implications that the pandemic has had on businesses, there have been some companies that have managed to thrive and survive during these uncertain times.
Personal Protective Equipment Manufacturers:
Companies that produced these are thriving in the COVID-19 pandemic. Ineos and other companies in charge of production plan to produce other COVID-19 necessities such as sanitizers spray, hand gels, and wipes to generate more revenue.
Amazon:
Amazon provided fifteen-thousand new part-time and full-time delivery positions and driver opportunities across the UK and they also placed great financial care for the well-being of their employees. As part of their initiatives, they declared that they were intending to invest approximately $4billion globally from April to June on COVID-19 related initiatives on delivering products to customers and keeping employees safe.
ARM Holdings:
One of the companies unperturbed by the pandemic was ARM Holdings, which increased employment by 6%, demanding more software designers and programmers. This company has revealed that it will need nothing less than 3,494 staff in the UK in 2021, and technical engineers will take most roles. The company presently needs about 575 new workers to meet its target of 2,919 staff in the UK.
