Benelux Treasury Operation
foreign exchange
Our global foreign exchange operation under Michele Di Stefano has embarked
on a new and more proactive policy of marketing value-added treasury and FX
products to a broad range of customers throughout the Benelux. The
department has already succeeded in substantially enhancing our profile in this
market, but it has a still more ambitious goal in mind.
Extending products
Taking initiatives
Cross-border transactions
Value adding
14 What'sNewS Issue 9 September 7 998
In the past, we offered treasury products
strictly in response to customer's daily
needs. The range of products was rela-
tively simple: spots, forwards, and a lim-
ited number of vanilla options. FX was
not a key product for the bank (nor for
our customers), there was limited cliënt
focus, and salesmen had little latitude in
how their products were structured and
priced. 'Now our aim is to leverage our
in-house knowledge and become nothing
less than the leading FX player in the
Benelux,' says Arnoud Doornbos, head of
ingly, structured transactions. What's
more, they are capable of structuring and
pricing products themselves, thanks in
part to new and more capable technolo
gies. These technologies have enabled
member banks to automatically trade
spots, forwards, deposits and loans in
recent years. As this process gathers pace,
and similar capabilities are offered
directly to clients, our existing personnel
will be further freed up to address higher
value transactions. Says Doornbos, 'each
salesperson is expected to look after ten
priority clients - sophisti
cated corporates and insti-
tutional players - and to
spend at least 75 percent of
their time devising deals on
their behalf.'
John Pascal van Houden positioning FX to
benefit from global trends
treasury sales Benelux. 'In some fields, like
options, we are on the way toward taking
the lead.' John Pascal van Houden, head
of the risk advisory group, adds: 'Our cus
tomers, especially large corporates on
whom we focus, increasingly tend to view
FX as a class in its own right, like stocks
or bonds. For instance, a large multina
tional making a purchase in the US, and
arranging its loans in Japan to take
advantage of low rates, often welcomes
specific solutions to hedge their overall FX
exposure. By proposing these, we can
move ourselves up the chain from volume-
to knowledge-based deals.'
Meanwhile, treasury sales people are
being encouraged to think like their cus
tomers. Their arsenal of products has also
been extended to include emerging market
instruments, exotic options, and, increas-
The Utrecht-based treasury
sales desk is the coordinat-
ing centre for all of the
Benelux. Mid-sized, smaller,
and private banking clients
are coordinated through
Antwerp and Luxembourg.
'We have a wonderfully
strong base of corporates
and institutional clients,'
Doornbos explains. 'Our
fundamental intent is to
become more proactive and
build on this base by leveraging our
strong capabilities in trading, risk advi
sory and research.' Among the general ini
tiatives taken since the Benelux desk was
formed last May is the start of regular
publication of the option daily newsletter,
which is faxed to leading target customers
and provides fundamental technical analy-
sis of the market and a number of major
currencies. This helps further raise our
profile among key customers. Other ideas
are more focused to specific customers or
classes of customers. 'I once had a cliënt
on the phone first thing in the morning
who wanted to make a trade in response
to exactly such a proposal,' Doornbos
recalls. 'He told me: "this kind of infor-
mation is just what I want: short with
clear best and worst-case scenarios on
which I can base a trade." In the past,
this sort of information was confined to
market players. We are now bringing our
views on such things as volatility trends
or major expiring options direct to our
customers, generating further business.'
Meanwhile, having been reorganized
globally on the centres of competence
principle, global FX works in a funda-
mentally different way. 'Nowadays, I
might be talking directly with my sales
counterpart in New York about a Dutch
corporate cliënt,' Doornbos says. 'Or the
cliënt can piek up the phone and call
Sydney to access specific regional exper
tise. Once, we brought Asian experts from
our Singapore team over
to Holland to make a
presentation to Benelux
clients on the threats
and opportunities in
Asia. Such things never
happened before. Many
people said FX would be
finished with the advent
of the euro but this is
hardly the case.' Indeed,
says Van Houden, FX is
in an especially good M
position to benefit from™
wider global trends.
Aiming high, Arnoud Doornbos
on the way to taking an FX lead
in the Benelux
Global FX risk advisory
can offer its expertise to
our member bank net-
work to develop more
value added products such as yield
enhanced deposits. This will mean that all
clients of the Rabobank Group, and not
just those of Rabobank International, can
benefit from our in-house expertise.
'Global FX has clearly decided to focus on
Benelux clients - at least for the start.
This is our home market where we have
long-standing relationships - and as trans
actions become more cross-border we can
expect that these relations will deepen.
Our core customers active in F&A, for M
instance, are increasingly moving into
emerging markets, which enables us to
leverage our contact with them and offer
FX expertise: it's a perfect fit.'
