A Bank Without Bonuses
April 4, 2012 Leave a Comment
Colum O’Driscoll
What if I told you that there was a bank in the UK, with 124 branches, that shuns paying its staff bonuses, has no sales targets and provides advice that is the best for the customer, not what is most profitable for the bank at that time. And what if I told you that the same bank has no call centres; instead customers ring their local branch and speak to someone they have met and know? You would probably think I was talking about the blueprint for a brand new bank; some sort of Banking Utopia designed to combat the negative press against the damaged reputation of UK Banks.
Well, the Bank that I have just described is the one I work for, Handelsbanken. Although they had been in the UK since 1982, the first branch opened in Nottingham in 1999, before opening 4 or 5 further branches each year. In December 2007, the Enfield Branch where I work opened and was the 34th to do so. Since then, Handelsbanken has steadily extended its network. Last year we opened 21 new branches and in the w/c 26th March, we announced the opening of branch 124 in Weston-Super- Mare, with Hampstead and Loughborough as numbers 120 and 121 being revealed in the last week of February. In just over 4 years 90 new branches have opened through organic growth and without central marketing – quite an achievement. Read more of this post
