Eye on Cover Story
Danske Bank Setting The Pace
Hard and fast figures are hard to come by, but there are few who would argue against the statement that Danske Bank is the market leader when it comes to corporate and business banking here in Northern Ireland.
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anske’s own figures put the bank ahead of the chasing pack, and it’s unlikely that any other surveys would produce a different result. But complacency isn’t something that Danske’s Managing Director of Corporate & Business Banking, Shaun McAnee, wants to see creeping in. “We’re not transfixed by being the biggest, so market share isn’t everything. But we do think that we have about a third of the market. What we do set out to be is the best bank. Not by an inch, but by as big a margin as we can.” he says. “How do we do that? We’ve done a huge amount of work around customer satisfaction, and our survey levels are looking really strong. We’re certainly ahead of our competitors on customer satisfaction ratings, and our aim is to stretch that gap. “Every business says that it puts the customer at the centre of what they do, but we try to bring that into everything we do. We work to find out the negatives from our customers and we work on those pain points. They become our priorities. The whole process means that we’ve had to re-see ourselves, and I think we’ve got our heads around it. “If we get this process right, everything else will follow.” Within the local Danske structure, Corporate & Business Banking looks after some 7,000 medium and large business customers. There are 70 relationship managers in the team
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and they’re supported by locallybased specialists. One of Danske’s USPs is a dedicated dealing room offering FX and Interest Rate risk management services to the bank’s customers. Danske also has specialist teams across asset finance, invoice finance, cash management and trade and export finance operations. “That totals about 140 people in customer facing roles and between us all we manage a balance sheet of £2.7 billion, with 97% of that deployed within Northern Ireland.” A direct result of the renewed strong focus on customer satisfaction is the recent internal appointment of Lyndsay Adams as Head of Business Customer Journeys. She takes up the story of her innovative job title. “Historically, we would have focused on products for our customers. What we’re doing now is coming at banking from a different perspective. We’re bringing our customers in to the early development of our solutions. Understanding what their pains are when it comes to banking experiences. Then we can design our solutions around what they tell us.” Lyndsay explains in a large second floor room at Danske’s Donegall Square West headquarters that is every inch an ‘ideas factory’.... with illustrations, thoughts and concepts written across every wall and multiple white boards. “The key to what we’re doing is that we’re asking our customers
the right questions and we’re learning from what they tell us. Our services and products are now built from there. “We know that we’re number one for customer satisfaction. But we also know that there is a tidal wave of change in banking and financial services. So focusing on just ‘good’ customer experiences, in itself, isn’t enough in this landscape. “What does customer satisfaction mean? It means that expectations were met....but otherwise the experience might be forgettable. A great experience is one that they’ll remember. Customers feeling more confident, feeling more valued, feeling as though they’re more in control. That’s what we’re aiming for. “As part of the process, so far, we have interviewed nearly 300 of our customers and received a really wide range of views and opinions. From there, we have designed personas based on different types of customers. When we’re designing solutions, we make sure that they’ll fit each different persona.” Niall Harkin, Head of Organisational Development for Corporate & Business Banking – another recent internal appointment - picks up on the theme. “There has even been a shift in how we measure our business performance. It’s not all about financial metrics and sales figures. Up to 50% of our KPIs now are based around customer service metrics. If we look after customer satisfaction, in other words, the business will perform better as a whole.” A chartered accountant as well as an experienced business banker and former head of Danske’s business acquisition team, Niall is also the current chairman of the Ulster Society of Chartered Accountants.
“My role at Danske is all about the change agenda and delivering the change agenda in the front line,” he says. “And a key part of that is delivering digital solutions that make a real difference to our customers.” Danske’s very latest digital innovation is its Future Financing platform. The bank’s rationale is clear-cut. “We’ve seen a lot of change in the competitive banking arena. A lot of new entrants have come in, primarily to personal banking but some of them are making moves into business banking. That’s a challenge to us, but also an opportunity. “Future Financing is a new approach to delivering support to our customers – digital with a human touch. This isn’t a small change....it’s a big leap forward. And it makes the whole credit process much easier for our customers, and further empowers our relationship managers.” Initially, the platform will be used by Danske’s relationship managers dealing with customers. But it has the potential, a little further down the line, to be used directly by those business customers. “Our customers should, in the near future, be able to go online and request an overdraft increase on a smartphone at home. It will be as easy as that.” How does Future Financing work? It incorporates what Danske calls a ‘credit engine’, using customer data and advanced analytics to make a decision on online credit applications. “The system makes that credit recommendation in seconds, and that’s the key strength of this piece of innovation,” adds Niall Harkin. “We’ve seen excesses being approved in 40 seconds and the money being in the customer’s account within eight
