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.

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'Raboband International' (EN) | 1995 | | pagina 3