hand Issue 10/January, 1992
International
Marketing and Product
Development:
Worldwide Service
Singapore: Living under one roof
Unico Banking Group up to date
KdUU
In the coming years, intensified efforts
will be made to expand the foreign busi
ness of the Rabobank Group. Here, there
is a major task for the International Mar
keting and Product Development Depart
ment.
IMPD ensures that quality foreign business
products are available for customers,
advises and guides them in doing interna
tional business, and handles the mar
keting and publicity relating to this area of
activity. In this respect the department has
contacts both with the local banks and the
foreign offices. IMPD is divided into three
departments. The first is Product Manage
ment. Among other things, the product
managers ensure that international funds
transfers are handled quickly and
smoothly, besides deveioping systems for
processing international transactions. The
second department is International Bank
ing Services. A team of commercial ad-
visers supports the staff of the member
banks in advising customers. In addition,
this department establishes contacts with
the foreign offices and alliance partners
on behalf of customers. Telephone
questions from the local banks are also
answered here. Thirdly, there is the Inter
national Marketing Services department.
lts activities comprise marketing research,
marketing operations and communication.
The three departments work closely to-
gether in signalling the market needs,
deveioping products and then introducing
them in the market.
In 1977, Rabobank was one of the foun-
ders of the Unico Banking Group, an asso-
ciation of European cooperative banks.
The group has its secretarial office in Am
sterdam. The other members are cooper
ative banks in Germany, France, Belgium,
Austria, Finland and Sweden.
In the seventies, Unico formed a platform
from which the cooperative banks plotted
their course for strengthening their position
on the international markets. At that time
they mainly aimed at the exchange of
expertise. Now that each of the banks has
meanwhile built up its own presence in the
world, attention is partly focused on
utilizing the network of banks for their
mutual customers. For example, with the
Unico account and the Unico help line for
customers who are travelling abroad and
want to contact their own bank. On the
other hand, Unico is very active in the field
of special training programmes, which are
mainly concerned with international activ
ities. In addition, the members of Unico
jointly manage the Unico Investment Fund
and the Unico Equity Fund in Luxembourg.
These open-end funds are sold on all the
stock exchanges in Europe. The banks also
cooperate in the field of capital markets
and securities. Among other things, they
participated in each other's issues, which
totalled US$ 1.25 billion in 1991.
visited Singapore. The main purpose of his
visit was to deliver the llth Singapore
Lecture. These highly prestigious lectures
have previously been given by prominent
world personalities such as Fienry Kissinger
and Flelmut Schmidt. Van der Schrieck, in
his capacity as President of the Association
of Dutch Businessmen in Singapore,
hosted a lunch for the Prime Minister,
endorsing the key role Rabobank plays in
the Dutch community in Singapore.
With the rapid expansion of both the
offshore branch and the Merchant Bank
during the past two years,
new premises had to be ar-
ranged. The offshore branch
and Rabobank Asia Ltd are
now housed on the same
floor. With the conso-
lidation of activities
between the branch and
Rabobank Asia Ltd under
one management headed
by Gijs van der Schrieck,
all staff are now geared to
working within the objec-
tives of a single commer
cial entity servicing cus
tomers.
Private banking's role in
Rabobank Asia Ltd has
been expanded to the inter
national field, lts objective is to
network with other regional
centres of Rabobank such as
Zurich and Luxembourg. In
Asia, the Merchant Bank will
also be sharing its staff
resources with Jakarta and
Hong Kong. They hope to
achieve a synergy between the
established centres in order to
tap the market and cross
transfer clients between each
other. The Singapore Branch
hopes to make an effective
contribution from the Far East
and to share benefits mutually
with other key centres. Last Aprii the
Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers (I)
