Indiana banks, inspired by Swiss program, to launch statewide apprenticeship program

(INDIANA CAPITAL CHRONICLE) — The banking apprentices in Zurich, Switzerland look up from the loan applications on their laptops when trainer Burak Besler calls for their attention.

“What do I actually need from the customer?,” Besler asks the second year apprentices, all 17 or 18 years old at the Chase Your Potential wirtschaftsschule — business school. 

“It’s really important that you know why these documents are being requested,” he tells them in German as part of their kreditprozess — credit process — class. “A few are simple and obvious, such as a standard ID card…And of course I also want to see how much he earns.”

Created in 2003 by Switzerland’s five largest banks, the CYP banking school is unlike any in the United States. With 30 partnering banks, it’s a school where apprentices —  many of them teenagers who would still be in high school in the U.S. —  learn banking skills letting them work in any bank in the country.

Now, the Indiana Bankers Association wants to create a version of CYP in Indianapolis as part of the state’s push to reinvent high schools and offer more meaningful work opportunities for students. 

The association plans to start a statewide banking apprenticeship by the fall of 2025 where high school juniors and seniors are paid to work and train at banks as often as three days a week, and attend high school the other two.

Though common in Europe, Indiana’s new apprenticeship program would be one of the first large scale white collar apprentice programs in the U.S. Traditionally building trades apprenticeships have dominated here.  

Apprentices would rotate between bank departments for two years, sometimes directly working with customers and handling accounts, with the possibility of doing a third year while also attending college.

Students will also receive extra training in banking skills at a new state Financial Services Academy based on CYP the association will host at its 75-seat training center it already uses for adults. Students would likely take classes there once a month, as Swiss apprentices do at CYP, either in person or live online if they are in other parts of the state.

The Academy could later expand to include other financial industries such as insurance.

The new banking apprenticeships, along with a similar effort with hospitals, will be the first steps in Indiana’s goal of better serving the 60 percent of high school students in the state who never attend college and earn any degree.

Indiana Fifth Third Bank regional president Michael Ash visited CYP and member banks in Switzerland twice over the last two years as Indiana leaders crafted a plan unveiled this month to create thousands more apprenticeships. Those visits taught him the state could adapt and create opportunities for high school students that also would help banks.

“It’ll give the student a lot more experience and…it will give the employer an opportunity to have an employee doing real work,” Ash told The 74. “I think it’s a win—win for the student and for the company.” 

Though some U.S. banks and insurance companies have hired apprentices, including J.P Morgan Chase and Zurich insurance, the new academy is likely the first in the U.S. where multiple banks jointly train apprentices of competitors, as well as of their own company. 

The American Bankers Association and several youth apprenticeship experts were unable to identify any other school like it.

Cooperation and agreement between banks on the key skills they all want employees to have, then to consistently teach those to apprentices, is a key part of the European apprentice model. 

“It hasn’t been in an organized fashion (in the U.S.) before where the trade association is involved and also educating the students, which is a big piece of this,” said Amber Van Til, president of the Indiana association. “It’s going to give the banks the confidence that they (students) have also had the educational training that they need to be workforce ready.”

The state legislature and department of education are reworking state diploma requirements to give students more course credit, and flexibility of class schedules, when students pursue work experience and training while still in school.

At the same time, teams of leaders from the manufacturing, medical and financial service industries have visited Switzerland to learn from a country where about two thirds of students use apprenticeships to learn a career or launch into further study.

Those trips have included stops to the CYP campus in Zurich, one of 12 in the country, that train about 6,000 apprentices a year combined.

In classrooms carved out of a rehabilitated former foundry, apprentices take classes starting at age 16 or 17 that progress from the basics of retail banking — working with customers at the front desk — to how banks operate, how stock markets work, how to handle mortgage or construction loans and later investment banking by their third and final year.

Altogether, CYP teaches apprentices 87 specific skills over the three years, such as this one:

Simon Stadler, CEO of the 12-campus CYP system, said Swiss parents  often prefer their children go to universities instead of doing apprenticeships, just like in the U.S.  But the Swiss still regard apprenticeships highly and there are real practical advantages to learning a job through them.

“Afterwards, you’re able to do it,” Stadler said. “You’re able to work from the first day in the bank, because you already know it. You have the experience and you also know how it works in real life.”

Being able to learn the different departments of a bank drew Chantal Rupff to become a banking apprentice.

“You get many opportunities during your apprenticeship,” said Rupff, 17 when this reporter visited CYP in 2022.  “We get to see a lot of different departments —  we change departments every half a year — so it’s really cool.”

Apprentice Nuzla Issadeen had a chance to go to university at 16, which the Swiss system allows, but chose to be a banking apprentice instead.

“I think that’s way too young to just go to school and study all the time,” she said at 18. “I’ve been in school since the age of five, I guess, so it wasn’t for me. I wanted to try something new. I wanted to earn money. “

Apprentice Noemi Cattolico also preferred having the hands—on experience of her apprenticeship, instead of the pure academics of students who go to university.

“They might be much more intelligent in what concerns studying, but if we’re talking about experience in life, and such things, and actually understanding others and understanding how the world works, they have absolutely no knowledge,” said Cattolico, 18 at the time.

CYP has shared its curriculum and overall banking apprenticeship plan with Indiana, which plans to adapt it slightly for the new academy.

“We’re going to probably stick pretty close to the Swiss model,” said Van Til. “It’s very well developed…the tracks that they have, the rotations that they have, the education CYP is providing is pretty much in line.”

Van Til said that though students will learn basic interaction with customers, they won’t be limited to just being traditional tellers, whose role she said has expanded over the years. They won’t be funneled into high—stakes investment banking either.

“Just because you come in the bank and you want to be an investment banker doesn’t mean that’s where you’re going to end up,” she said. “We’re going to assess the student while they’re there, see where we think their skill set is and try and direct them to where we think would best be a fit.”

“Are they good at writing?” she asked. “Are they good at communication? Do they like marketing? Do they like working with customers? Are they better behind the desk? Maybe loan processing. (We’re) seeing what their skill sets are, and then matching them up upon graduation.”

How much demand Indiana high school students will have for banking apprenticeships isn’t clear. Students who have test—driven banking through internships at a bank branch located at Zionsville Community High School northwest of Indianapolis were intrigued.

Mann Patel, now a sophomore majoring in finance at Indiana University, interned at the branch of Star Bank as a senior in 2023. That internship, just an hour a day for a semester, taught him enough about banking that he decided to continue pursuing the field, possibly focusing on wealth management.

But committing to that path in 11th grade would have been too much for him, even if more hands—on work than what the internship offered would have been tempting.

“Probably senior year I would have definitely considered it,” Patel said. “ Going into college? Yeah. But junior year, if it’s two or three days full time, I probably would not have.”

Akshara Amuhadin, a junior interning at that branch now, also hopes to find a career in finance. She said she likes hands—on learning and would likely try the new apprenticeship.

“If you know for sure that this is the career that you want to go into, that’d be a really great way to get some real world experience about banking,” she said.

Fifth Third’s Ash said he believes both banks and students will take advantage of apprenticeships that are long overdue.

“When you see CYP and you see the students this seems so obvious,” he said.  “You kind of kick yourself, like, why haven’t we done this sooner? Because it makes so much sense. But you know, we’re starting now, right? So we’ll get there.”

This story was reported with support from the Spencer education reporting fellowship at Columbia University.