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WHAT S NEWS Issue 10 November 1997
As the European monetary union moves closer and the
preparatory work of the Frankfurt-based European
Monetary Institute (fore-runner to a central bank) gets
underway, this German city is becoming an increasingly
important international financial centre. Here too, more
and more financial institutions are seeking to corner the
lucrative fee income and solution-driven structured
market.This means changing requirements in the banking
environment and the need for bankers trained in customer
problem solving, rather than product seliing.
Thomas Penzkofer heading An additional challenge
personnel. besides recruitment and
Frankfurt has been Germany's
financial centre for decades
and remains of prime
importance, even more so as it
is the residence of the
European central bank. This
also means that the
environment in which the
Frankfurt branch must
operate is a highly competitive
market in which strong banks
- both domestic and foreign -
compete for the small pool of
highly qualified personnel and
the lucrative fee income
business. According to Werner
Gonser, 'Foreign banks like us
are especially competing in
the market for increasingly
sophisticated products and
to be able to translate
customer needs into financial
solutions through combining
product and market know
how. It is not enough just to
focus on technical and social
skills, that is why we are
creating training programs to
assist the relationship
managers in developing the
cross-fertilization of skills -
both inhouse and externally.
As an example, we will now
start to run courses which put
the relationship managers in
the role of corporate treasurer.
It is also crucial to send our
people to specialized
Rabobank programs like the
corporate risk analysis courses
as we need tailored and very
focused training as a niche
player.'
Gert-Jan van den Brink of operations having
fun with numbers.
solutions. And as the market
for off the shelf products will
be shrinking, you need highly
skilled and motivated
personnel to create and sell
unique solutions.' As the
branch human resources
development officer Thomas
Penzkofer points out, 'a lot of
banks are reorganizing in a
way similar to us. Flence
recruitment becomes harder
becomes every bank is seeking
highly qualified staff and the
number of those people is
relatively small. Realistically,
good bankers are always on
the move, that means you
have to be very creative in
your retention programs
because the people on the
move are usually the very
talented staff.'
retention is to continuously
improve the skills staff need to
really make the customer focus
strategy work. 'For example,'
continues Penzkofer, 'the new
generation of relationship
managers will especially have
Thilo Wolf,
switching
on for IT.
The office in Frankfurt
