The message was clear when Riho Unt, head of Retail Banking in Estonia, and Hardo Pajula, an economist at SEB Estonia, talked about the new plan at a press conference in Tallinn on Thursday.
“Tough times have shown us that if we don’t know everything there is to know about our clients and/or our clients’ business, we can’t help them the way we should be able to because we lack an overview of the clients’ needs and the options that are open to them,” Unt said.
Therefore, SEB will be the first bank in Estonia to take significant steps in the transition from a product-based organisation to a client-based one.
From words to action
“People have been talking about the client-centred view in banking for a long time, but what we do is still product-based,” said Unt.
“What’s important to SEB is for us to be our clients’ home bank – they should know we can offer them everything they need, because it’s based on their needs. Our existing loan and investment advisors have become customer relation administrators, since our clients don’t merely need loans or investment products, but a comprehensive financial plan for the future.”
With the new approach, SEB hopes both to attract entirely new customers and convert existing passive ones to home-bank customers.
Talking about the economic situation at the press conference, economist Pajula said the period of rapid economic downturn is now behind us and we can look ahead to a year of stability, albeit one without significant growth.
Economy turns more positive
“The economic situation in Estonia at the moment is pretty much a reflection of the state of the economy the world over,” Pajula said.
“There’s been a notable shift towards the positive on the financial markets in recent months: money offers increased in December surprisingly quickly, interest rates are falling and share prices are rising. But on the labour market there still isn’t much light at the end of the tunnel – in the first week of this year alone a further 3,000 people lost their jobs. The elastic band that’s being stretched out between these two markets is going to have to snap in one direction or the other at some point. Needless to say, getting the nod from Brussels to join the euro zone would be a major boost to the positive trends we’re witnessing at the moment.”
EVELIN ALLAS