EU - THE BANK IN
PARTNERSHIP
10
info exchange
What'S NewS Issue 9 September 1996
very stringent
authentication
process: is this user
who he/she claims
to be; is the user
who we think
he/she is? This kind
of fire-wall
authentication will
also protect us
against hackers.
You have to
remember that our
system is a private
network. You
would have to be
in one of our own
offices to access it - it cannot be done
from outside.' Ensuring systems are safe is
also the responsibility of each individual
office. 'We are putting together a guide
which will help offices protect their own
systems. And as full roll-out comes closer,
they will need to be ready.
Already live - Yves Morvan in
Paris.
ROLL-OUT SCHEDULE
If all goes according to plan,
this month will see
preparations for the full
implementation, or roll out, of
the new system. 'We have been
communicating with all the
other offices,' Knippenberg
says, 'not only to let them
know what is feasible, but also
to discover exactly what their
situation is. A lot of offices
have different requirements
and these have to be met.
We're also communicating
what it will all cost, when it
can be organized and so on.
But, depending on the delivery of lines -
there are some countries where that can be
up to 100 days - we anticipate that all our
offices will at least be able to
communicate through our e-mail
functionality by the end of December.
After that, we'11 start adding the other
facilities. One of the problems is that the
number of offices keeps increasing. When
we started, there were 55. Now, that
number is already 71. But we're working
on it and we'11 keep you posted.'
RABOBANK E-MAIL
Op dit moment wordt
hard gewerkt aan de
realisatie van een
internationaal communicatienetwerk, zodat
aan het eind van dit jaar alle kantoren
wereldwijd electronisch met elkaar kunnen
communiceren. Het systeem voorziet niet
alleen in een E-mail functie. Het biedt ook
de mogelijkheid toegang te krijgen tot
systemen in Utrecht en hiervan lokaal
gebruik te maken. De mogelijkheden zijn
vrijwel onbeperkt, het oversturen van
bestanden, videoconferenties en
gezamenlijke databases.de toekomst biedt
perspectief.
The European Union (EU) is increasingly welcoming 'partnerships' with the private
sector in an effort to insure the successful execution of its long-term financial
support strategies. Many of these are focussed on the food and agribusiness
sectors in which Rabobank has cultivated great expertise and a high international
profile. In an effort to assist both its clients and the EU in meeting its goals, we
launched a European Union Advisory Services unit this year.
Diederik Conijn - matching interests.
'Our objective is to become an essential
partner in the execution of the European
Union's financial support programmes,'
says Conijn, who is based at the bank's
Brussels office. 'We are in a unique
position to offer our services and leverage
our business relationships in order to help
the Union realize its global objectives.'
DIVERSIFIED SUPPORT
The EU has several different types of
support programs; for example,
development aid, financial/technical
assistance (such as feasibility studies and
training), and economie support and
export finance, (which is designed to
improve infrastructure and basic
industries in target countries). These
programs involved a total of some ECU
86 billion this year, of which about ECU
40 billion was earmarked for assistance
outside the EU. 'Some of this aid may be
distributed to larger European
multinationals and SMEs, including
Rabobank, in the form of fees for their
services,' Conijn says. 'But at the end of
the day what is important is that the
objectives of the EU and our clients are
better realized.'
WORKING HIGH-RISK MARKETS
Rabobank has already received a mandate
under which it is helping a cliënt obtain
EU finance to build a joint-venture milk
factory in China. The cliënt is building
the infrastructure to handle raw milk for
conversion into UHT long-life milk. It is
also helping train farmers to upgrade the
overall quality of their milk and to
improve the sanitary standards of milk
handling.
'In other parts of the world, like Central
America, EU programs such as the ECU
75-million FEPEX/FORESCA trust funds
let us help our clients do business in
regions of the world that we might
otherwise have avoided because of the
high risks involved,' explains Conijn.
EU-SUBSIDIES
Vanuit Brussel houdt
Diederik Conijn zich bezig
met de mogelijkheden die
de EU-regelingen bieden op het gebied van
ontwikkelingshulp, economische
ondersteuning en exportfinanciering.
Inmiddels is al een mandaat verkregen voor
ondersteuning bij het opzetten van een
melkfabriek in China en wordt subsidie
verleend voor een uitwisseling van
management trainees uit een aantal
Aziatische landen. Deze trainees krijgen een
programma waardoor zij een beter inzicht
krijgen in de europese manier van zaken
doen. De samenwerking met de EU is voor
beide partijen aantrekkelijk. Wij dienen de
belangen van onze klanten op een
zodanige manier dat de Europese Unie haar
doelstellingen kan realiseren.
