On the home front
WHAT'S NewS Issue 2 February 1997
the netherlands
9
Rabobank Harderwijk-Ermelo-Putten is what is known in Rabospeak as a 'merged' member
bank. Once three autonomous local banks, the very different operations were joined some
years ago to pursue growth in a region that is undeniably one of the most beautiful in the
Netherlands.Tourism is a major source of income for the Veluwe, but agricuiture and
industry also have their role to play. Harderwijk Rabobankers were willing to let us glimpse
behind the scenes at the operation which ranks seventh in the international turnover stakes.
Peter Meester
'Can I help you?' says the
personable young woman, who
later turns out to be one of
Rabobank Harderwijk's
greeters, Eveliese Luiting. Help
»is clearly necessary as the
nank's reception area offers a
whole range of choices.
Machines on the left to handle
basic business, from changing
money to withdrawing savings.
Personal assistance on the right
for the slightly more complex
teller operations. Business
clients up the staircase.
Harderwijk's greeter asks me to
wait a few minutes - director
Jan Gardenbroek, corporate
account manager Mart Bakker
and payments manager Peter
Meester are still with a cliënt.
STATE-OF-THE-ART
That gives us time to check .out
the reception area. An
■impenetrable fog prevents
^dmiration (or photography) of
the very modernistic Rabobank
building in a town which was
once a member of the mighty
medieval Hanse League of
traders. The building had
housed a department of
Holland's Secret Service, so the
bank is uniquely provided with
an atomic shelter, a fact that is
of little moment to a 5-year old
child who is far more interested
in the play-computers in the
kids corner of the bank. People
come and go, do simple
business, or are led to more
private niches for consultation
Jan Gardenbroek
on mortgages, loans, private
banking, insurance, and even
travel. This is clearly an
example of state-of-the-art
branch design aimed at
providing combination service
to retail and business clients
alike. The concept behind it is
that customers should have
choices. Technology is there but
personal service is just as
available.
INHOUSE SKILLS
Meester speeds down the stairs,
apologizing for the delay. A
deal has just gone through;
there are papers to prepare,
last-minute checks to carry out.
We sit in one of what appears a
very large number of meeting
rooms and discuss the trading
done by his team. Although
Harderwijk abides by the same
guidelines as all other member
banks, ie. it uses Rabobank
Nederland as its banker's bank,
it has a number of skills
inhouse and the member bank
uses them. 'We do deals up to
NLG 1 million,' confirms
Meester. 'Above that amount
and a dealer in Utrecht
automatically moves in. But we
do our own trading when we
can.'
VARIED CLIENT BASE
Harderwijk, as already noted, is
a rather picturesque old city
that was once on the shores of
the Zuyder Zee but is now
landlocked since poldering, the
Dutch habit of creating land
out of water, cut it off from
both the sea and its former
livelihood - fishing. This is
decades ago, of course.
Government went all out to
compensate, offering incentives
to companies who relocated to
the area. 'This gave us quite a
varied spread of corporate
clients,' says Gardenbroek, who
was director in Putten before
moving to Harderwijk. 'If you
look at Putten, then most of our
clients there are in primary
agricuiture or some kind of
Mart Bakker
F&A. Ermelo's cliënt base is
more mixed. That means we
have all kinds of corporate
clients with all kinds of
different needs. And that cliënt
base includes around 15
percent who are active
internationally.'
REAL IMAGE
Competition is tough in the
region. 'That's not news; it's the
same everywhere, not only in
Holland,' Gardenbroek says.
'That means you have to be
extremely creative if you're
going to survive.' While the
region is seeped in history and
the bank itself has a long
tradition there, none of the
Harderwijk team is keen to
look back. 'Rabobank had an
exclusively agri-image, which
tends to be a fairly conservative
image, for a long time,' Bakker
says. 'If we are always looking
back and reminding people of
the past, then we'11 end up
stuck in the past. Our reality as
local bankers is very different
from that old exclusively agri-
image.'
TOP 40 HIT
Jan Gardenbroek smiles rather
ruefully. 'That old image has
been a millstone round our
necks,' he says frankly. 'Unlike
our competition, we have this
apparent reluctance to teil
people when we've done
something well. We have to
become more extrovert as a
P RABOBANK HARDERWIJK-ERMELO-PUTTEN
De Rabobank Harderwijk-Ermelo-Putten is een van onze 'gefuseerde' locale banken. De bank is een voorbeeld van een moderne
Rabobank. Met een actief beleid en een verrassende aanpak, bewerkt de bank haar markt. Enige jaren geleden werd gestart met
een jaarlijkse bijeenkomst voor ondernemers in de regio. Het afgelopen jaar bezochten meer dan 1.000 mensen deze bijeenkomst, wat het succes
hiervan onderstreept. Ook voor vermogende particuliere klanten worden bijeenkomsten gehouden waar sprekers van nationaal niveau hun
opwachting maken.
