Curacao opening -
it's official
Holland
in BRIEF
Staff communication magazine for the Rabo
Rabobank's
first lady
Italy upgrade
GMC report
Looking ahead
De Lage Landen celebrates silver
New strategy in retail
Less cheques
Green cattle
House-style presentation
ISSUE 30/27 JUNE 1994
Friday, May 13, was the culmination of years of hard work and
preparation by the staff of the Willemstad office. The oldest foreign
operation in the international division, Curacao had long been a
rather modest affair. But its new role as service hub for the region
meant a radical increase in personnel, and a new building.
The bank has appointed Gui
Hua Chen as the Shanghai
representative. Chen was born
in the Chinese financial centre
but rounded off her education
at the University of Nijenrode
business school in the Nether-
lands before returning to her
home city to take up a senior
appointment with ABN/AMRO.
Fluent in both Dutch and
English as well as Shanghainese
and Mandarin, she joins the
bank on August 1 to launch
the new rep office in the PRC.
Chen is the first woman to be
appointed at this level in the
international division; there is
only one other woman in
senior management - Hong
Kong's assistant general
manager and operations chief
Cindy Kwong.
The Milan office is currently in
the process of applying for a
branch licence ffom the Bank
of Italy. At present, the bank is
represented in Italy through
its finance company, which
will continue to operate along
side the proposed branch
structure. In addition, Roberto
de Cardona and his staff will
be moving to new offices in
July. Full details in next
month's issue.
For an overview of the general
managers' 1994 conference,
please turn to page 3.
The agri-project finance team
meets in Utrecht on June 24.
September 12-16 has been
slated for the agri-trade and
trade finance account
managers meeting.
s w
...Jfc M
The Netherlands Antilles Central
Bank president Emsley Tromp
(photo) and chairman Herman
Wijffels did the honours at the cer-
emony that officially opened the
renovated merchant's villa on Wil-
lemstad's once exclusive Schar-
looweg. The elegant homes had
fallen into disrepair over the years,
but the Maduro building, once oc-
cupied by a prominent banking
family, has now been turned into
a fitting home for Curacao Rabo-
bankers. Among the celebratory
luncheon guests was Antilles' prime
minister, Miguel Pourier as well as
the minister of finance and Cura-
cao's finance deputy. 'An opening
on this scale is a relatively rare
event on Curacao,' says GM
Donald Heukels. 'We took the op-
portunity to present the bank to
the island's professional and fi
nancial community. The media
coverage was extensive and actual-
ly caused us some headaches be-
cause we suddenly got an immense
stream of job applications from
people who wanted to work for us,
and a lot of mortgage requests, so
the newspaper attention wasn't
perhaps always as factual as it
could have been.'But no one at
Rabobank Curacao is complain-
ing. They have become a well-
known bank overnight and their
building is considered a blue-print
for further work on Willemstad's
numerous other monuments. A
combination of conservation and
high-tech solutions has transform-
ed the building, while preserving
its characteristic elegance and
charm. A week after the opening,
Curacao's first annual Open Mon
ument Day meant around 2,000
visitors explored the bank's new
home. 'We'd expected quite a lot
of interest,' Heukels says, 'but by
the end of the day our staff who
were guiding the tours were ex-
hausted. At one point, the waiting-
time was an hour - and that's in
the hot sun. Yet, when you hear
that people were saying: Don't
bother with that building, go and
see the Rabobank, that's the best,
then you really feel that all the staff
has done to make this work was
more than worth while.'
Originally set up as a finance
company to provide credit to
both private and corporate
clients on the domestic market,
over the past 25 years DLL has
grown into a specialized national
and international leasing and
factoring operation. Although
the company has a number of of
fices abroad, it is currently
looking at the feasibility of set
ting up new operations, probably
in Spain, and of expanding its
factoring operations in Italy to
include leasing.
The bank will be introducing a
new strategie approach to the
domestic retail market. In recent
years, results in this market have
declined and the revised approach
is aimed at a turn around by
taking customer needs as point
of departure.
The number of pin code pay-
ments has tripled over the last
three years. In 1993, the Dutch
made 61.3 million electronic
transactions. The use of pins has
led to a 50-percent decline in the
number of Eurocheque-pay-
ments.
Cattle farmers who invest in en-
vironmentally-friendly stalls for
their animals can apply to the
ministry of agriculture for a 30-
percent subsidy up to a maxi
mum of NLG 318,000.
At the Annual General Meeting
on June 9, the bank's new logo
was presented to member banks
and personnel from Rabobank
Nederland. The video presen
tation is currently being subtitled
in English for the foreign offices
and all international staff will
have an opportunity to see it in
the very near future.