INTERNATIONAL SERVICES:
GOING
INTERNATIONAL
LOCALLY
Since its launch in July 2008, RI's International Services (IS) has already
notched up new business worth EUR 1 billion, and that is just the beginning
of what promises to be a huge source of future growth. The IS offering is also
proving to be a good platform for cross-sell on an international scale.
Mare Oostdijk and Chris Abbenhuis
RI's International Services exists primarily to help
Rabobank's member banks in the Netherlands to
service their clients, and to help them add value
for those clients as they go international, says Chris
Abbenhuis, Director of International Services. "If you
can't follow your clients beyond the Dutch border, quite
often they'll look elsewhere. Not only do you miss out
on a lot of high margin business, it's also the first step
towards losing all of that client's business." The truth is
that Rabobank is not yet following its clients enough
internationally, he says. "We have a fairly large share of
internationally-active corporates in the Netherlands,
but they do very little of their international business
through Rabobank. Increasingly, small and medium-
sized enterprises (SMEs) are now going international,
and that's where we have a very large market share. If
we don't take advantage of that we're cutting ourselves
offfrom future growth."
One of the biggest challenges is proving to the
member banks that the services offered by International
Services are working for their clients, since member
banks are very reluctant to risk their best clients until IS
can do what they say they can do. This is why they have
now developed a new servicing model. Before, there
was no central contact point, just a couple of Dutch
desks, and they simply didn't have the right products.
Mare Oostdijk, Head of Marketing and Market
Development of International Services: "We've changed
that dramatically. We now have international finance
managers, who can answer any questions the member
bank account managers have and can visit clients to
let them know what we can offer. And we now have
ISSUE 20
THE WORD
