REGION SPECIAL ASIA
The challenge... integration
REBRANDING HAGA
AND HAGAKITA TO RABOBANK
New Customers
The integration however was faced with some challenges. An
important one came from a labour specifïc component within
the Indonesian merger regulations. It stipulates that all employees
from both acquiring and acquired companies, upon merger, have
the right to resign and receive a substantial severance package.
Eventually, after a well focused retention initiative for key staff, as
well as intensive socialisation ofthegrowth strategy of the merged
bank, the majority of the employees decided to stay and be part
of the Rabo family. But the process created a reasonable level of
uncertainty and anxiety.
Another challenge was the integration of the systems. With the
decision to keep Midas from Ril as the main system, an intense
project had to be set up to integrate the legacy systems from Haga
and Hagakita with Midas. This was further complicated by the fact
thatthose retaii systems were running on old Novell platforms,
which had done a good job in the past, but no longer complied
with Rabobank's standards and RH's ambitions for growing the
business. Ril therefore had to go through the doublé process of
fïrst upgrading the retaii systems, and then set up the integration
with Midas.
A third challenge throughout the integration-related initiatives
was the corporate culture. The blending of a corporate banking
culture fed by a large international group, with a local Indonesian
culture driven by specifïc characteristics of Indonesian retaii
banking, triggered a few interesting issues. It led, for example,
to discussions where the "old habits" from the corporate and
retaii sides had to be synchronized, in order to come up with an
appropriate fit after the legal merger. This also meant that often,
the speed of decision making was up for discussion.
After considering the strong rating of Rabobank and its global
presence, the decision was made to rebrand HHK to Rabobank in
order to benefit from its brand power.
The first visual step after the legal merger is the rebranding of
the 94 branches of Hagabank and Bank Hagakita. In July and
August, the rebranding team will visit all branches to change
all Haga branding represented in the signage, light boxes, ATM
logos and backdrops to Rabobank. At the same time banners,
hanging mobiles and other rebranding material will be made
available.The staff will also start wearing new uniforms.
The bank's merger slogan: New Name, Same People, More Bank
was chosen to convey the message that while HHK is now part of
the triple A rated global bank, customer relationships are assured
through the continuity of the same customer service. In addition,
the 'new' Rabobank can do bigger, better and more international
deals for its cliënt base.
In expanding its business, Ril Wholesale maintains focus on the
F&A sector and selected corporate markets. Regarding the retaii
operations, the focus will be on SME and consumer banking. The
bank will also build the Global Financial Markets (GFM) business,
while at the same time firmly expanding to the SME sector with
the extended network of Hagabank and Bank Hagakita. Of course,
the bank's triple A status is a great support in creating market
share in these areas. Danny Hartono, Ril Deputy President Director:
"We are keen to tap into the potential SME market as this sector
has shown good performance in recent years, indicated by the
lower national non-performing loan from 4.3% in 2006 to 3.44%
in 2007 while the combined net Non Performing Loans of the
three banks in June 2008 is only at 0.49%."
"With the strong support of Rabobank as the shareholder, we are
setting our target to increase our loan to the SME sector by 30%
per year in the next 3 to 5 years."
Geert Embrechts, the Chief Financial Risk Officer (CFRO) and
member of the integration team, adds: "We have started quite
a few projects that intend to help the new merged bank with
servicing our existing customers better and with more products,
thereby capturing more wallet share. We recently developed
a structured deposit together with GFM. At the same time, we
ZO ISSUE 17
THE WORD
