FINANCIAL SERVICES
‘We asked ourselves how could we make this more substantive, and we decided the only
answer was instead of being a cost centre, we needed to become a profit centre’
Aidan Brady
cost base. “It was a great boost for Ireland and for us, but we knew the cost advantage couldn’t necessarily last so we started to ask ourselves where else did we have advantages?”
Profit centre “One thing leads to another when you’ve got that thought
process,” he says. “We asked ourselves how could we make this more substantive, and we decided the only answer to this was instead of being a cost centre, we needed to become a profit centre. “So, we set about transforming ourselves, and set up a bank in
2002 in order to attract profit. The first productwe moved in was World Link, a fabulous product, sold into 120 countries, which effectively allows customers to make payments in any currency around the world from their desktop.” Indeed, Citi won the Exporter of the Year award in 2005 for
exporting this product to, at the time, 108 countries. There fol- lowed another 20 or so products, says Brady, from payments products to custody products to trade products. “That was 2002.
We now have a bank that last year reported a pre-tax profit of €600m in 2009 in Ireland. “So we have continued to move with the the times. And I sup-
pose the latest initiative in that lifecycle was the RDIL Centre, which we launched in 2009.”
Innovation centre “Again we looked at our own customers and what they were
doing, moving from base manufacturing to higher level manu- facturing to product development,” says Brady. “A huge part of banking is transaction services, moving money around, holding assets, and so on, and it’s all highly technology-driven. In a way this type of banking is very like the manufacturing or technology industries.We knew, like them, the next level was R&D.” This led Brady and his team to talk to IDA Ireland. “They were initially mesmerised by the thought of a financial services com- pany doing research and development,” recalls Brady. “But after much debate we got there, and they supported us with several initial projects. Then we announced thatwe would spend€100m in R&D and employ 100 people.We’ve employed a lot more than
100 people as it turns out, so again it is a great success story for Citi here.” As a result Citi in Ireland has been awarded the project to
develop the next generation of its electronic banking platform and the Worldlink product. Dublin won these projects, Brady points out, because of its track record and its in-built culture of always wanting to be ahead of the curve. “Everything we do leads to the next, and we just have to be out there aggressively looking for the next big project – we are competing with over 100 countries.”
Focused future Brady is optimistic for the country’s future, as long as we focus on
the right sectors, and we remember the importance of the multi- nationals. “I think what Ireland had forgotten is that the boom started because of the multinationals, many of whom have been here since the Sixties. That’s what started the Celtic tiger, but the whole country got mesmerised by property and forgot. Now peo- ple are starting to realise again that the base of this economy, the crown jewels, is the presence of the multinationals.” As for the future of international financial services here, Brady
believes we should focus on our already strong base in funds and transaction banking. “The whole capital markets area, the idea of getting traders in, that has not and will not work here inmy view. The reason it won’t work is our personal taxes are too high. “We should build on our strong core, which is the funds and transaction banking business, with some of the greatest names in global banking based here, and a strong established skills base. It is easy to forget, but when we started off in the Nineties, there were great young people coming out of colleges but they had no experience in these areas. Now the IFSC has been going 20-odd years and there’s a huge skills base here. That’s not an easy thing for others to replicate. “Today Ireland is a major centre for funds and transaction banking.We’ve taken what was once a UK business, and now we have 50 or60%of that business here,” concludes Brady. “Very few other industries have done that.”
Ann O’Dea UCD BUSINESS CONNECTIONS 33
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