Lm
Kano
'Having your own branch
abroad is much nicer'
Issue 6/April 6, 1990 band
Aalsmeer, centre of Dutch flower and plant culture.
is still very young compared with other
Dutch banks. Anyone doing business
abroad ten or fifteen years ago didn't go to
Rabobank. But now there are several corm-
panies which are transferring their busi
ness from other banks to us, particularly
tor our international payment transactions.
And that, even though we as an organiz-
ation are still really newcomers on this mar-
ket.' Kroon adds: 'Here we have one of the
most advanced computer systems for
funds transfers. Together with Rabobank
Nederland we have developed our own sys-
tem with which we settle all incoming telex
payments, cheques and debit advices with
our customers on the same day. That is an
advantage for the customer. He sees the
money in his account immediately. And
that's decisive for him. Other banks always
have to do that through their head offices
and that simply takes longer. Because of
this speed, deliveries to his customers can
go out sooner. Our customer knows the
money for a previous consignment has
come in and the next consignment can be
sent off to the same customer.
Everywhere 'As soon as an office is
opened anywhere in the world we aione will
already give that branch enough work to
keep it pretty busy', asserts Philippa. 'For
example, we are already in touch with the
new office in Milan. Our representative,
Cees Jansen, reported that there are quite
a few interesting schemes for vegetabie ex-
porters. He's going to find out about them
and let us know. Then we'll sound out our
vegetabie exporters and see whether it is
of any interest to them. So there's an input
from both sides. For our part, we will make
sure the representative office in Milan is
supplied with customers.'
Middle East Philippa: 'We are still
really short of a number of branches. The
Middle East is particularly important for us.
We have absoiutely no presence there yet,
nor is there any sign of anything being done
there. That's a great pity.' Kroon: 'For us,
it's simply like this: the more offices, the
better. In the USA you see offices being set
up here and there, and that's great. But
look at Great Britain. There is oniy one, in
London. As far as we are concerned, addi-
tional offices could be set up in, say, Glas-
gow or Dublin. Greece is still missing, too.
Lots of flowers and plants are sent there.
In fact, they go all over the world. The more
Rabo bases there are, the better it is for us
and our customers.'
Satisfied Generally speaking, the cus
tomers in Aalsmeer are satisfied. 'They al
ways want more, of course', says Philippa,
'but that is natural for customers. In particu-
lar, they regard speedy funds transfers as
very important. If an amount is transferred
from Spain, it's on the way for a week. And
that's using the fastest system. We are
now carrying out an experiment with some-
one who does business with Spain to see
how this payment fiow is channelled.
Where are the bottlenecks? We think they
are in the Spanish banks, but why there?'
Kroon: 'In this way we are working together
to locate the problems and see where im-
provements can be made. That requires an
effort from the customer. But people are
quite prepared to cooperate because
speed is their problem too. It simply takes
too long, while nowadays it should surely
be possible for transfers to arrivé the same
day, particularly within the EC countries. I
think Rabobank must aim to set up more
and more offices which can then really op-
erate as branches. That does indeed mean
channeiling payments via Utrecht with a di
rect notification to the local banks. But in
Utrecht, too, it takes quite some time to
process everything. As far as that goes, in
ternational payment transactions in Rabo
bank are still not properly automated. That
is a real bottleneck. Payments now have to
go through four different computer systems
before they finally reach the local bank.
That's shocking in this day and age, but
that's how it is.'
Financing When a customer intends to
open an office abroad he looks for financ
ing facilities. Philippa: 'We see that in-
creasingly in West Germany, for example.
There they ask ADCA-BANK for finance
ADCA is willing to provide that, but oniy if
the Aalsmeer bank gives a bank guarantee.
I'd be quite willing to finance things on that
basis myself... In that way, the foreign bank
supplies finance without any risk.' Kroon:
'Caution is the watchword. We would like
the foreign branches to run their own
financing policy more instead of simply rely-
ing on bank guarantees given by local
banks. Under the Articles of Association we
ourselves can oniy finance a company esta-
blished in the Netherlands, and even then
oniy one in our own operational area.'
Future 'With 1992 in mind it is very im
portant to have Rabobank in every country
in Europe', advocates Philippa. 'If one of
our exporters has an account with a bank
abroad and the frontiers open up, then that
bank will say: you can do all your banking
business through us. Even now you can
see foreign banks becoming more active.
So particularly in 1992 you will have to
prove your worth completely as a bank, other-
wise your customers will desert you. It's
coming fast, you must be one jump ahead.
An international network of offices will cer-
tainly help there.'
In conclusion, Philippa still had this to
say: 'Foreign offices must always remem-
ber they are primarily there for the member
banks. They must not be too intent on lead-
ing a iife of their own, on the lines of: 'Yes,
here we have our own branch and we're
going to do banking here. I have an idea
that funding is sometimes the most impor
tant thing, not the member banks.' To this
Kroon adds: 'Your thinking must be cus-
tomer-oriented. As a bank, you must be
able to identify with the customer's situ-
ation. If you want to keep a customer, you
sometimes have to be able to depart from
the established rules. As Rabobanks we
can do that, but it seems to me that the
foreign offices stick much more rigidly to all
kinds of rules.'
Dutch people like to buy flowers.
55jg£Ë&£
