Dublin - an international
perspective
I
V
International 3
Opened officially on November 11 by Ireland's minister of finance,the bank's new Dublin
office rounds out the Group's service package to dients in both the Republic and worldwide.
Grouped together - the combined staff of Rabobank Dublin, DLL and Interpolis.
Rabobank Ireland's brief is to provide
corporate banking, corporate lending and
treasury products for international corpor-
ates. However, the Dublin-based team will
also be tackling the local domestic market.
'The bank has put enough equity capital in
place to make us one of the most strongly
capitalized banks of its size in Ireland,' says
general manager Arnold Kuijpers. 'This
means we can be very active on both the
domestic Irish lending market and in
international markets.' In line with global
Rabobank strategy, the Dublin office will be
targeting specific segments of the Irish
corporate market. The food and agri-sectors
are high qn its list of priorities in this highly
agricultural economy. The agricultural sector
accounts for 9 percent of Ireland's gross
national product, whereas the EU average is
around 3 percent. However, the major part
of Dublin's business will be international in
nature. The reasons for this are the oppor-
tunities offered by the International Financial
Services Centre in the Irish capital. Banks
with an IFSC licence have a significant fiscal
advantage in the sense that their profits are
taxed at a favourable 10-percent rate. In ad-
dition, Ireland has tax treaties with 21 coun-
tries, so it is possible to structure deals from
here on a mutually profitable basis for the
bank and the cliënt.
When doing business, fiscal implications
are considered of increasing importance by
major corporates. And there is a growing aware-
ness of these implications for the bank's own
dealings. This means that in the ever-increasing
competitive banking environment, it will be-
come more and more imperative to offer
clients additional added value when doing
large ticket deals, whilst at the same time
maintaining the bank's own position. For this
reason, the Dublin team offers additional prod
ucts. The need for this type of structured prod
ucts is apparent from Dublin's recent rapid
growth as a major financial centre. At present,
300 financial institutions are established here,
employing around 1,800 and the number is
expected to doublé in the next few years.
Two of these institutions are De Lage Lan
den and Interpolis which set up operations
here in the early 1990s. Rabobank Ireland
now forms a unique entity with these two sis
ter organizations, both within the Group and
within the commercial market place. 'It's not
just that we share the same premises here in
Dublin,' says Kuijpers. 'What we have ac-
tually done is to combine many of our efforts
so that we can offer specific clients a broad
range of IFSC products which are sometimes
interrelated. There is also a cost advantage in
having, say, only one reception area, but the
idea behind our combined operations
Minister Bert Ahern in action.
are much more far-reaching,' Kuijpers explains.
'Just take treasury, for example. De Lage
Landen has decided to cluster its treasury
operations activities in Dublin and this has
been achieved through close cooperation with
the Rabobank dealing room here. Two Lage
Landen treasury experts have relocated here
and they will be using our systems to tailor
DLL funding for its units. The ensuing trans-
actions on the international financial markets
will then be executed by Rabobank dealers.
This is an exceptional cooperation and means
we achieve a major synergy.'
The three Group subsidiaries are also work-
ing together on the commercial front. 'The re-
ality is that the financial needs of large interna
tional corporates are not limited to lending
alone,' says Kuijpers. 'They often require other
products from other disciplines. Captive in-
surance is a good example here. Interpolis is in
this business. The assets placed in a captive by
a large corporate can then be administered by
the Rabobank dealing room. In other words,
what we have here is, in effect, a real allfinanz
solution to cliënt needs.' Expectations are high
for the success of this new venture in Ireland
where the fiscal climate is favourable for many
international deals, and where the domestic
market itself offers numerous opportunities,
especially in the food and agribusiness sector.
The Dublin team, which already consists of
15 staff after only six months of trading, is
enthusiastically pursuing the business it needs
to achieve their goal of becoming the sixth
largest bank in balance sheet terms in Ireland
before the end of the century.
Dublin chief Kuijpers.