On the alert C 3 Rabobank What's NewS Monthly internal newsletter for Rabobank International Issue 10 October 1996 Theo van Koningsveld and bis brainchild - at the cradle of breaking tecbnological development for the bank and its clients in brief j- SOUTH AFRICA - IT'S OFFICIAL The state visit of Queen Beatrix proved the ideal opportunity to launch officially the bank's rep office in South Africa. Minister of Economie Affairs, Wijers, who formed part of the accompanying trade mission, did the honours for the bank on October 1Johannesburg- based representative Paco den Doop had put together a comprehensive program for Henk Visser, who attended on behalf of the executive board. Senior level cliënt meetings and consultations with both government and banking •uthorities are on the agenda mark the bank's offical entry into this exciting market. Big things proverbially come in small packages - and Rabo Alert is a perfect example. This tiny, hip-hugging electronic paging device was devised by Rabobank to meet the niche needs of finance industry professionals, corporate clients, and private banking customers. It has been designed to deliver real-time data on breaking developments in the stock, bond, and FX market worldwide. Each subscriber will get only the information they need. For example, corporate clients may be particularly interested in FX cross-rates. Private banking clients, trading on margin, are more intent on the value of their bond and stock portfolios at the end of every day. Rabo Alert also comes supplied with software that enables an office colleague or spouse to directly transmit an urgent message. Already tested, the service is now scheduled for public launch. Raw financial data will be delivered by Dow Jones Telerate, market analysis by IRIS, the pagers supplied by Motorola, and the connections by KPN, the Dutch telecoms group. The way all of these components have been tied together, and the resulting service plugged into a waiting cliënt base, signals Rabobank's success in surfing the tsunami-wave of breaking technical developments. Even the competition has signed on for the ride. Theo van Koningsveld, who conceived the product, says he can 'only chuckle whenever I think of all those professionals on the ABN Amro and ING trading floors who have Rabobank-labeled pagers buzzing on their hips!' contents TRIODOS - GREEN STAKE As the first of the trio of major Dutch banks, Rabobank has taken a 5-percent stake in the Triodos bank, a growing financial institution whose goal is investment in projects which advance and support sustainable development. Known as the 'Green Bank' in the Nether- lands, Triodos was founded in 1980 and has since set up subsidiaries in both Belgium and the UK. Through financing environmentally and socially responsible projects, also in the Developing World, Triodos has seen its balance sheet grow strongly. 'Business is going so well - we saw a 35 percent increase in our balance sheet last year to NLG 310 million,' says Triodos chairman Mackay, 'and we feit the time was right to look for a capital injection to doublé our own assets. Rabobank is the first of the majors in Holland to take a stake.' Dutch insurer Delta Lloyd has also taken a similar stake in the green bank. According to Mackay, the relationship with Rabobank is very much linked to chairman Herman Wijffels' and the whole organization's commitment to sustainable development. This commitment is also apparent in the fact that Wijffels wrote the introduction to Triodos' most recent prospectus for its fourth emission. Rabobank itself has already established a number of Continued on page 2. WHAT'S NEWS IS BACK AGAIN WITH AN INFO PACKED ISSUE ON WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE BANK. Working relations - DSM on what we do well 3 Retailing technology - advances in store 4 Telecom in print - moving into media 5 Networking - account and trade finance managers cottoning on 8 Taxing exercises - fiscal applications in the bank 10 Talking heads - IPB's Thomas van Rijckevorsel does it himself 12

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'What's news' (EN) | 1996 | | pagina 1