Retail banking also includes wealth management services, but aims more towards helping less affluent people make the most of their income rather than investing for high net worth individuals. Financial planning services offer savings and investment advice, usually to help people secure a comfortable retirement.

It's the junior bankers working in actual branches that can expect to deal directly with customer queries and handle complaints in person. They help customers at the counter within the branch and attempt to recommend suitable products and services. They are also responsible for selling these products and dealing with necessary administrative functions such as opening or closing accounts, changing customer details or setting up standing orders.

Some of these support functions can also take place over the telephone, so retail banks hire large numbers of people to staff their customer service call centres as well.

Graduates are at present one of the main targets of retail banking recruitment. If they are placed to work in the branches, they can be fast-tracked to managerial positions. After a two-year training programme learning about the financial products, leadership and customer service, candidates are then either put forward to manage a branch or lead a sales function.

There are also a range of other careers in retail banking aside from these traditional roles.

Banks recruit product managers and product developers to develop and create the services they offer customers, whether that includes credit cards, online or mobile banking, or insurance services. Alongside these roles are marketing jobs, which identify demand for particular products or services and devise and implement promotional campaigns to take advantage of current needs. The main term for these roles is 'customer propositions'.

There are also jobs in operations management, including roles for business analysts, change managers or project managers. These roles are responsible for working on operational efficiencies (this includes downsizing strategies), running the bank's systems and processes, diversifying its product offerings, and finally transforming and optimising the way the business operates across finance, risk and technology functions.

Risk is another key function of retail banking. This includes risk at a group level - with jobs such as credit, operational and market risk managers - along with people who are responsible for advising whether to issue personal loans and mortgages. Fraud prevention jobs are also essential for retail banks' risk divisions, whether these require protecting customers' personal details, anti-money laundering (AML) roles or even jobs in preventing bribery and corruption.