4 We do struggle with the fact that the rural areas are asset-rich hut cash- poor, while th usually asset-poor and cash-rich 9 We believe that 40 to 50 percent of our lending Farmer MacJ SELF-FUNDING 6Berry Marttin, Executive Board Member: Mark Grass, CFO Rabo Agri Finance: The 'Wake up your lazy money' campaign includes advertisements in traditional media and online channeis, as well as a quirky Money Tree promotion that has generated more than 100,000 views on YouTube since initially screening on the 'Sunrise' breakfast television show. The campaign, which kicked off in late May, has been instrumental in increasing RaboDirect's deposits to a historie AUD 3.8 billion by the end of August - edging the bank closer to its self-funding goal. RaboDirect Australia's Wake up your lazy money' advertising and promotional campaign is just one example of the increased marketing efforts that Rabobank International's (RI's) Rural Retail (R&R) business has initiated in order to achieve its 70 percent self-funding goal by 2014. The general idea is that further R&R growth should be less reliant on Group funding. At the same time, Rl wants to increase awareness of liability costs to the business. But the shift to self-funding is also preparing the bank for new regulations evolving from Basel III. "Rl has done well," explains Executive Board Member Berry Marttin. "We have expanded, created profitable assets and financed our growth. But now the time has come to develop a more solid business case and get a better understanding of the price of that growth. The move from primarily financing F&A towards also finding funds by enhancing our visibility in the markets requires a mind shift within the bank. Rabobank is not only a farmer's bank." The general purpose and the specific requirements for new regulations seem well understood within the bank. But there are huge differences between different units within R&R in terms of tools and capabilities to find sources for self-funding. And the move towards self-funding will have major consequences for the branding and marketing of R&R, since the core target group of farmers has limited potential as suppliers of deposits. Rl will have to look beyond F&A to find new funds, both on a local and global level. Dan Stevens, Chief Financial Risk Officer for Rabobank N.A., (RNA), describes it as a climate change. "Before the global financial crisis, our mantra was to grow the asset side of the balance sheet and not focus as much on the need for self- funding via core deposit growth. As a result, loans increased by approximately USD 4 billion from 2003 through the end of 2008, while our deposits only increased by roughly USD 200 million. When Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 during the unprecedented financial crisis, the resulting liquidity concerns dramatically highlighted the need for us to rely more on self- funding our loan growth. Self-funding became our primary focus here at RNA and, especially in light of Basel lll's recently proposed requirements, for Rabobank globally as well. As Rl had primarily been wholesale focused, RNA was somewhat of an outlier, but now we have maybe become a more interesting model for international growth." issue 25 Rl WORLD Stills from RaboDirect's Lazy Racing television commercial

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'RI World' (EN) | 2010 | | pagina 20