My ideal bank? I would like a decent interest rate on my savings, like what we had in the past: three per cent … six per cent! My ideal bank would charge today’s low interest rates on my mortgage and business overdraft. My ideal bank would have many branches full of cheerful staff, such that I hardly ever need to queue up. My ideal bank would open new bank accounts, new credit lines, all types of high return investments, on the same day and without a tonne of paperwork!
My ideal bank would be accessible for more hours each day, as well as on Sundays like the big shopping villages. It would have ATMs all over, in case I run out of cash and I would be able to access my money and make payments via the internet, my latest iPhone and Facebook!
My ideal bank would offer a wide range of same-day payment options allowing me to pay and receive funds from anywhere in the world, in any currency. Speaking of which, it would accept crypto currency transactions.
My ideal bank would keep my hard earned savings and investments 100 per cent secure.
Come to think of it, the last thing I want is for my bank to fail or get into difficulty where I lose my capital or even temporary access to my money. This is so important the other attributes of my ideal bank I mentioned earlier seem trivial now; I can’t believe I was taking safety of my money for granted.
We all have our own idea of what is an ideal bank. The notion of an ideal bank is just that: ‘a notion’ which is clearly not achievable in today’s economic and regulatory environments. Still like other ideals, it is a useful concept to strive towards.
BOV’s vision of the ideal bank is to be a safer, stronger and more modern bank
Bank of Valletta has been working in the background to become a safer bank for some time now.
A primary source of risk for any organisation is the areas of business and transactions it gets involved in, in servicing its clients’ requests. BOV has set for itself a lower risk appetite and consequently a new customer acceptance policy, clearly signalling that moving forward it will seek to engage in lower risk transactions.
However, being Malta’s largest bank also means that BOV carries a legacy of business which falls short of this more recent standard. For this reason, the bank is also reviewing its existing business lines and clients against its risk appetite and exiting entire business lines as well as individual client relationships, which present a degree of risk to the bank.
The bank is currently exiting both its trustee services and its fund custody operations. With regards to client relationships, the bank has kicked off a review of all its population of thousands of customers having first started on its international corporate and personal clients, and soon moving to a review of the rest of its client base.
Whenever it is found that the risk posed by a specific client relationship exceeds the bank’s risk appetite, that relationship is exited – a painful but necessary process. While the review of the bank’s international business lines is still ongoing a good number of relationships with international corporate and international personal clients have already been terminated.
BOV’s vision of the ideal bank is to be a safer, stronger and more modern bank. BOV is upgrading its core technology to be able to offer access to various banking services through the electronic channels we know today and also to be better positioned to offer new banking services via new channels as banking and technology continue to evolve.
BOV is also implementing a new risk management framework, and pruning its business to ensure it is not only a modern bank but also a safer bank for its customers, shareholders and the country.
Joseph Camilleri has held a number of senior key executive positions spanning a 32- year career at Bank of Valletta. He is currently the chief officer responsible for international business, as well as the bank’s business restructuring initiatives.