New look for the
Annual Report
What's in a name?
8
It's new, it's readable, it's good, and it's
available!
Rabo
Rabobank-past and present
The publication of annual
reports is a legal require-
ment. Basically, they con-
tain an overview of a specific or-
ganization's financial position
so that this can be evaluated by
national bodies which govern
and marshall business activ-
ities. Because of their very
nature, traditional annual re
ports tend to be a summary of
figures accompanied by formal
texts designed for the techni-
cal-financial reader.
However, in recent years, annu
al reports have been used in-
creasingly as a tooi to inform
existing and potential sharehol-
ders of a company's current po
sition and as a marketing aid.
In order to improve accessi-
bility for the general reader,
great pains are now taken to
create attractive layouts. But
the texts have remained the
same - formal and highly
technical.
Rabobank is, of course, also
obliged to present an annu
al report to the Dutch
authorities. It comprises all
the required data and
backgrounds to financial
figures, but, clearly, it is
not designed as a marketing
tooi. The realization that only a
section of Rabobank's figures
were of concern to most of its
clients abroad has led the mar
keting services department to
Issue 17/May 24,1993 band
develop a 'new' Engiish-language
publication which is
a both an annu
al report and
corporate bro
chure. The Ra
bobank Group -
Group Profile/An-
nual Report con-
tains only a limit-
ed selection of
financial state
ments (indepth
figures and audi-
tor's reports are
published in a sep
arate appendix). The
new-style report com
bines an overview of
the bank and its his-
tory, a summary of its
core activities and
operations worldwide,
and relevant financial
data.
Copies can be ordered
from marketing services
in Utrecht, telephone:
+31 30 902804; telefax:
+31 30 901976.
A new series traces the bank's roots and looks at how the once
small group of farmers' cooperatives grew into a world-class
financial institution.
Rabobank is a household
name in the Nether-
lands. Ask anyone, and
they will teil you that it is a shor-
tened form of the original na-
mes of the Raiffeissen and
Boerenleen banks which merg-
ed in 1973. But to most em
ployees around the world, it has
no inner or historie meaning.
One of the drivers at Rabobank
Duta in Indonesia summed it
up neatly when he explained
Rabo means Wednesday in his
language. Apparently, the fact
he worked for the Wednesday
bank had become a running
gag among his friends. In
Spanish it means 'tail' and if
you open up an Esperanto dic-
tionary, you'll find it under
'pirate'. So, reason enough to
begin at the beginning and look
at the historie background to
the emergence of Rabobank.
For the majority of Dutch far
mers in the 19th century, work-
ing the land was not a lucrative
business. The scenes sketched
by Vincent van Gogh showing
people scratching a living from
the soil form realistic records
of how tough life was for small
farmers. Much of the land was
owned by absentee landlords
whose main interest was
squeezing as much as possible
out of their tenants, not only
through rents, but also through
loans at impossibly high in
terest rates.
In the mid-19th century, a Ger-
man named Friedrich Wilhelm
Raiffeisen thought up a 'self-
help' system for local farming
communities which wouid
enable them to protect them-
selves not only from high in
terest rates, but also from the
financial devastation a bad har-
vest could cause.
The basic Raiffeisen concept
was simple. The farmers were
to join together and become
members of a cooperative
bank. Each member guaran-
teed a specific amount of
money in case the bank got into
difficulties. The deposits, how
ever small, were then used to
advance loans to members who
needed them at reasonable in
terest rates.
Raiffeisen's banks quickly
spread through Germany and
the idea reached the Nether-
lands towards the close of the
19th century and the first Dutch
Raiffeisen bank was started in
1896.
Farmers' cooperative banks
sprang up rapidly throughout
the primarily agricultural Nether-
lands and a need was soon feit
for a central organization which
could capitalize on the excess
revenues of the member banks.
'Oddly enough,' notes profes
sor Johan de Vries in his history
of the Rabobank, 'the Dutch
didn't set up one central organ
ization, they started two, and
both in 1898 - the Cooperative
Central Raiffeisen Bank in
Utrecht and the Cooperative
Central Farmers' Credit (Boe
renleen in Dutch, which puts
the bo in Rabo) in Eindhoven.'
The official reason was a major
difference of opinion on the
most desirable kind of legal or
ganization. But professor de
Vries suspects that it was bas
ically an internal squabble about
who should hold what position
in the projected central orgnaiz-
ation, and when the various in-
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen
terested parties failed to find
consensus, they split apart.
That is history now. In 1973,
the two banking organizations
merged to form the Coöperatie
ve Centrale RAif-
feisen-BOeren-
leenbank, which is
a mouthfull in any-
one's language,
so it was quickly
turned into Rabo
bank.
Over the 20 years
of its history, Ra
bobank has ex-
panded its oper
ations to build on
its domestic role as the bank
for food and agribusiness, in-
dustry and the retail sector by
goingglobal. Today, its network
of foreign offices means it is a
financial force to be reckoned
with - both at home and abroad.
