Polish citizens have started to put unprecedented amounts of cash into investment funds and savings accounts BGZ's CEO Jacek Bartkiewicz: The Polish dream of cash into investment funds and savings accounts. The mortgage finance market is also booming, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 30%, and is expected to reach the EUR 70 bln benchmark by 2011. Consumer lending is set to grow by more than 18% in the period 2008-2011. So, it's not difficult to see why Rabobank is keen to gain a firm foothold in the Polish market. It is one of the largest countries in the CEE region and the sixth most populous state in the EU. It also stands at the very heart of Continental Europe, with easy access to 250 million consumers within a radius of 1,000 kilometres. Poland commands the cross- roads between Eastern and Western Europe, stretching from the Baltic coast in the north to the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the south, and from Germany in the west to Russia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine in the east. And since the demise of communism in 1989, Poland has also transformed itself into a stable, democratie country with strong institutions and a rapidly developing economy. Moreover, Rabobank's acquisition of a majority stake in BGZ comes as the sleeping giant, that is the Polish economy, is putting its western cousins in the shade.There is strong "When I was appointed to BGZ in 2002, long before Rabobank came into the picture, the future of the bank did not look promising. In that year, we suffered a loss of 340 million Zloty (EUR 88 million) and we were still under the supervision of the National Bank of Poland. The situation has since turned around completely. Last year, profits amounted to 192 million zloty (EUR 51,4 million) and, once again, BGZ has attractive prospects, which are in part attributable to the participation of Rabobank in BGZ." "In 2005, after Rabobank had decided to participate in BGZ, we formulated a new strategy. New priorities were set, a new structure was put in place and the bank was rebranded. Since then, many processes within the bank have been improved, such as our non-performing portfolio. At the time, this amounted to 20% and we have managed to reduce this to 4%. In addition, we have improved our approach in the bank's branches. In the past there was far too much of a wait-and- see attitude when it came to looking for customers. This has now clearly been adjusted. The result of these changes is that we have now raised our level of service to be comparable to that of Rabobank." "If you place Rabobank and BGZ side by side you can see a clear difference in practices and people, despite our identical values. Within the process of further collaboration we would like to use and introducé as many ideas from our Dutch colleagues as possible. But at the same time we want to keep our Polish identity and not lose touch with it. I spent twelve years at another Dutch bank in Poland. This has given me a good insight into the Dutch banking world. Rabobank is extremely focused on its long-term relationships with its customers. BGZ does this too, but we want to become even better. Furthermore, we see that Rabobank is closely involved in the local environment of the customers and this is something we wish to develop further." "Up until now the banking sector in Poland has hardly experienced any consequences of the international credit crisis. The only difference compared with a few years ago is that there was still a signifrcantly large supply of liquid assets in the market at that time, but that has completely disappeared now. We have recently determined our strategy for the next four years. Our goal is to acquire a position amongst the top ten banks in Poland. In order to achieve this we would like to improve our position in the small and medium-sized towns and cities. We will therefore open about 150 new offices in the coming years. It is important for us to grow even more so that we can further reduce costs. We also expect a lot from our collaboration with Rabobank Polska. This will give us the opportunities to provide an even better service to our large customers in Poland." ISSUE 17 OCTOBER 2008 THE WORD 1 1

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'RI The Word / The Word' (EN) | 2008 | | pagina 11