OREANDA-NEWS. February 03, 2010. The period of rapid economic downturn is behind us and we can look ahead to a year of stability, albeit one without significant growth, said Riho Unt, a member of the management board of SEB, and Hardo Pajula, an economic analyst who has returned to SEB, at a press conference, reported the press-centre of SEB.

Since our economic reality has changed markedly, now is the right time to cast a critical eye over our service. There has been a significant shift in clients’ expectations of bank services, which is why SEB is taking the major step of amending its services from product-centred to client-centred.

“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 3000 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 Eurozone would be a major boost to the positive trends we’re witnessing at the moment.”

Riho Unt: Clients expect better bank services
Riho Unt, a member of the management board of SEB and the company’s director of retail banking, says that he expects to see fiercer competition on the everyday banking market, since the private client market is almost 100% covered by bank services. However, no success will come under the existing business model, which is based on individual, product-centred offers. Clients’ expectations have changed, and on both the private and corporate client markets customer relations which cover all products and services are being valued more highly than products themselves. “Tough times have shown us that if a bank doesn’t know everything there is to know about their client and/or their client’s business, it can’t help them the way it should be able to, if it needs to, because it lacks an overview of its client’s needs and the options that are open to them,” Unt explained.

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. “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 the home bank for our clients – that they 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.” In the near future SEB will be sending passive clients an offer in which they will be invited to choose SEB as their home bank, rather than maintain an account with the bank which they never use. “SEB has a clear ambition, and that’s to increase our number of home bank clients in terms of both private and corporate clients,” Unt explained.

Describing developments in loan conditions, Unt added: “The situation stabilising a bit has allowed us to reduce the rate of self-financing for SEB home loans to 20% of the amount being borrowed, and that will be introduced from 1 February this year. Adopting the euro, which is becoming more of a reality with each passing day, should increase stability and the general sense of security, which will help open up financing conditions even further.”