December 20, 2017
The banking community is generally well-known for its risk aversion. It’s probably just as well, as the hundreds of billions that personal and institutional depositors entrust to banking institutions daily must be managed wisely and cautiously. But what if, in this conservative financial universe, you managed to combine return and risk? Rabobank, a cooperative bank, has been skillfully doing this for years!
A living tradition of innovation
The Dutch banking institution, founded in 1972 and based in the city of Utrecht, has been innovating since its earliest days, offering its members direct payment, for example, either electronically or by mail. Over the years, Rabobank has kept the pace and continues to offer its members and customers (respectively 1.9 million and 8.7 million today) cutting-edge services based on information and telecommunication technologies, to facilitate members’ access to banking services.
On the fast track to innovation
Rabobank relies on technological innovation to improve member service. But its cooperative spirit also drives to make innovation a vector of economic and social change on a global scale. To achieve this, the organization contributes to resources and skills internally. One example is the Moonshot campaign, an annual initiative for Rabobank employees that allows them to develop an idea or concept that can ultimately translate into a new product or service for the bank. For the third edition of this campaign, 175 ideas were submitted to the organization. Members of the three teams whose ideas were accepted were given a three-month leave of absence to devote themselves entirely to their project. Rabobank hopes to translate these ideas into tangible mobile applications in the near future. One of these applications will integrate facial recognition to facilitate the payment of various transactions, the second will offer a virtual platform for farm equipment lending, and the third will provide farmers with a tool to manage their agricultural facilities.
Rabobank’s drive to innovation extends beyond its walls. The bank is a true European dynamo in terms of support for entrepreneurs and innovation, and has joined forces with world-class accelerators such as Startupbootcamp or Startup Fest Europe.
Rewarded efforts
That Rabobank’s business culture is dedicated to innovation is a recognized fact – the Dutch institution tied with consumer giant Unilever for second place in Europe’s Corporate Startup Stars 2017, an annual ranking of Europe’s most innovative companies drawn up by the European Commission’s Startup Europe Partnership. Rabobank is second only to Cisco, a company well versed in cutting-edge technology that ranks above companies renowned for their innovative spirit, such as Virgin and Telefónica.
These examples all show that, like Rabobank, managing both the need for performance and the inherent risk is possible through innovation.
Article by François Normandin, lecturer, research professional and writer, HEC Montréal.