"RABOBANK IS STILL VIEWED AS A TRUSTED BANK AND
SHOULD BENEFIT FROM ITS 'SAFE BANK' REPUTATION"
Rl in 2007
Retail Banking
Rl Communications
Cultural Diversity
Ten Cate looks back on what has been a remarkable year in
terms of the net result - last June, he believed that Rl would
achieve the '2010 strategie framework target' in 2007. "However,
due to the turmoil in the financial markets, the numbers now
look quite different. In my 34 years as a banker, I have not
experienced anything like what happened this year".
The worldwide financial crisis has been triggered by the US
subprime saga and is infecting the entire system, Ten Cate
believes that "herein lies the danger because the trust that banks
once had in each other has largely disappeared. You don't know
how the others are doing because no one is showing their true
colours".
Even as an experienced banker, Hans ten Cate has learnt from the
crisis. "We need to be more careful with the bank's liquidity", he says.
"Liquidity is less evident now than it was six months ago, which was
a hard lesson we were confronted with in August. The bank may
need to realign its balance sheet to adapt to this new world".
It is inevitable that Rabobank will suffer from the crisis, but Hans
ten Cate is convinced that the damage will be limited. "Even
under harsh market conditions, the Rl portfolio is strong enough
and diverse enough to be able to achieve growth and show a
healthy performance in the near future. In addition, Rabobank
is still viewed as a trusted bank and should benefit from its 'safe
bank' reputation. Our bank is proud of its AAA status, which is
owed mainly to our low risk profile, and the quality and spread of
our assets", says Ten Cate.
'Though the GFM results will be affected by the market turmoil,
2007 was a positive year in many respects as well", says Ten Cate.
'This year, Rl has further strengthened the Corporate Bank and
boosted the performance of Trade and Commodity Finance
(TCF). In addition, TMI achieved strong organic growth in Europe,
Asia and Australia and also CF managed to close some very large
and attractive deals. Finally, Participations performed extremely
well and achieved an abundant profit".
In 2006, we acquired Mid-State Bank Trust in California and
Bank Haga and Hagakita in Indonesia; in the beginning of 2007,
we acquired HNS Banco in Chile. The acquisition of these banks
was finalised in 2007. "We realised this year that buying a bank is
simple, but integrating our new bank acquisitions and bringing
them into a profïtable situation to achieve sustainable growth is
a demanding task. Focus in 2007 lay with the integration of the
acquired banks within Rl. In 2008, we should start to reap the
benefits", says Ten Cate.
Overall, Ten Cate expects that Rl will achieve a reasonable profit,
though it will be lower than budgeted. 'This shows that RI's portfolio
is suffciently diverse", says Ten Cate.
With rapid international growth over the last five years, Commu
nications at Rl was in need of a facelift and needed to become
a tighter run ship.Therefore, the Executive Board and the MBRI
decided to approve the new Rl communication proposal. "Rl will
have its own communication department, which will be organ-
ised globally, based on five regions. Furthermore, a new commu
nication team will be established in Utrecht to provide for
the global communication activities. The regional heads of com
munication will form the Global Communication Coordination
Team. The new team will be responsible for creating a coherent,
transparent, integrated approach to worldwide communication",
explainsTen Cate.
Rl has grown tremendously over the last ten years and is now
active in 38 countries all over the world. The new found rich-
ness in cultural diversity in international offices is a defïnite plus,
but also means employees don't have a history, background or
identity with Rabobank. "We have absorbed many cultures", says
Ten Cate, "but I think that Rabobank must preserve its own spe
cial character - we must remain distinctive". In the Netherlands
- where Rabobank is a retail bank, physically close to the cliënt,
- being distinctive is fairly simple. But abroad, where Rabo oper-
ates in large professional markets, projecting the bank's identity
is more difficult. The far from simple task of establishing a
common Rabo-cultural identity is needed to help or even explain
communication challenges across borders. "A joint culture is very
important!".
The MBRI discussed culture on several occasions throughout
2007. "We realised that changing culture is far more difficult than
saying we want to change it", says Ten Cate. "One of the main
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