Twentieth Annual
General Meeting
French and
Spanish managers
on a home visit
Winner of New
York competition
visits
the Netherlands
Rabo
Ér
Rabobank
pursues active
personnel
development
policy
What's on
in Holland
The General Meeting of the
Rabobank Group is held once
a year on the second Thursday
in June. Three thousand repre
sentaties of the local banks,
the general managers of the
foreign offices, regional man-
agements, external guests,
former members of the man
agement boards, a number of
employees from Rabobank
Nederland and the press come
to the Royal Dutch Fair confer
ence centre located opposite
the Utrecht head office.
On 11 June, Executive Board
Chairman Wijffels looked back
to last year with satisfaction.
He also unveiled the results of
the first four months of 1992.
Overthis period, credit granting
by the organization in the
Netherlands has again risen
sharply, both in the private and
the corporate market. The
growth in the funds entrusted
to the bank has declined, how-
ever. The results of the foreign
offices showed a positive pic
ture. Wijffels also announced
that marked progress has been
In the spring of this year
André Bar of Rabobank France
and Maus Barendrecht of the
Madrid office were in the
Netherlands.
They visited customers of local
banks who do business with
Karl Propst (second from
left), a credit analyst with the
New York branch's Dallas of
fice, won a trip to the
Netherlands last year
on the occasion of
the branches tenth
anniversary. He paid y
a one-week visit to
our country in April,
together with his
partner.
They were present at
the opening of the
Floriade international
horticultural exhibi-1
tion and went round 1
the tourist attractions
in Amsterdam and I
Issue 11/August 24, 1992 band
made in the field of cost con-
trol. The number of employees
in the organization feil by
200 man-years in the first
four months. Nevertheless, he
warned that further cost cut-
ting is essential. The afternoon
programme of the meeting was
filled by a presentation on the
corporate market by two mem
bers of the Executive Board,
Paul Burghouts and Frank
Schreve. Their talk was illus-
trated by video pictures which
were projected on the largest
video screen in Europe. Six
businessmen gave their views
on Rabobank in this video. The
strong points mentioned in-
cluded the short lines in de-
France and Spain. They dis-
cussed the practical problems
encountered by entrepreneurs
when doing business abroad.
Together they looked at the sol-
utions Rabobank can offer and
the role of the alliance partners
was also explained.
The local support is particularly
appreciated by the customers
of the Rabobanks in the Nether
lands.
Rotterdam. A visit to Rabo-
bank's head office in Utrecht
was also on the programme, of
course. There they met a num
ber of colleagues, including de-
puty general manager of the
International Division, Willem
Wagner (I) and Ad Middelburg
of the Foreign Offices Depart
ment.
cision-making, the bank's ex
pertise and personal contact.
Also appearing in the video
were two of Holland's top
sportsmen, the footballer
Marco van Basten and tennis
player Richard Krajicek, who il-
lustrated the contact between
bank and business with state
ments about self-confidence,
the sharing of success and
learning to accept losses.
The banking business is un-
dergoing tremendous develop-
ments worldwide. Competi
tion, new technologies, chang-
ing customer behaviour and
demographic developments
have a very great influence on
the services supplied. The fac
tor of labour is becoming
increasingly important. That
calls for extra attention on the
part of both employees and
managers.
To meet this need, Rabobank is
pursuing an active personnel
development policy and numer-
ous projects have meanwhile
been set up to do this effective-
ly. In local Rabobanks and
Rabobank Nederland the qual-
ities and capabilities - or other-
wise - have been, and are be-
ing, identified. Much attention
is being paid to training courses.
The Personnel Placement De
partment has been created to
promote the throughflow of em
ployees to other jobs. lts task
is to gear demand to supply on
the internal labour market.
Another department is respons-
ible for the temporary place
ment of employees who wish to
develop their career further by
acquiring experience in several
jobs. This Interim Management
and Career Development de
partment provides advice, guid-
ance and support for those
with such ambitions.
Back to school The market
is changing and is making
higher demands on the bank's
staff. As a result the educa-
tional level of thousands of
Rabobank employees in the
Netherlands is too low. A pro
ject was recently started to
give those interested the op-
portunity to improve their edu-
cational level. Additional in-
struction is given in econ-
omics, business administra-
tion, English and Dutch. Part
of the training course takes
place during working hours.
Idea awarded An employee
of a local bank recently re-
ceived Dfl. 25,000, or over
US$ 14,000. He submitted an
idea to the suggestions com-
mittee for sending mail as
cheaply as possible. That will
result in an annual saving of
Dfl. 400,000. The reward is
the highest ever paid for an
idea.
New subsidiary As from 1
January 1993 Rabobank will
have a new subsidiary. The
Central Information Technol
ogy Department, which is re-
sponsible for organizing auto-
mation in Rabobank, will be-
come independent. It will then
also be able to offer its ser
vices to other companies and
make the most optimum pos
sible use of its available
knowledge and facilities.
Telebanking 'Rabo Teleban
kieren', a new product, was
tried out in five Rabobanks
last year. The bank's employ
ees and customers were able
to organize their banking af-
fairs at home with a personal
computer or a special ter
minal. Among other things,
they could transfer money and
ask for information on all
kinds of banking products and
services. The trial was suc-
cessful and 500 local Rabo
banks will introducé the sys-
tem in the course of this year.
Working on Rabobank has
two large computer centres.
One of them contains the
equipment which organizes all
the transactions relating to
cash dispensers and point-of-
sale terminals. If that system
goes down, the bank's own
1,350 cash dispensers are
put out of action and cus
tomers cannot pay electron-
ically either. A second system
was recently taken into use in
the other computer centre so
that the systems can replace
each other in emergencies.
