Third Banking Management Industry Meeting

Building the Future of Banking

“Banking in Europe: Building the Future” was the theme of the 3rd Banking Management Industry Meeting held at IESE’s Madrid campus recently. Juan José Toribio, director of IESE in Madrid, led the event together with José Luis Madriaga, president of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Spain, and Juan Pi, vice-president of IBM.

The first presentation was delivered by Jeremy Peat, head economist of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, who confirmed that the European banking sector was becoming increasingly attractive for transnational operations, due to low costs.

Along these same lines, Madariaga highlighted that currently the goals for leaders in the sector are similar to those in other industries. He said that a pan-European framework is emerging that has stiffened competition, shrunk profit margins and required adaptation to new legislation.

According to Ignacio Alvarez Rendueles, managing director of Goldman Sachs, transnational banking operations offer an array of benefits including the potential for sharing best practices, risk diversification and greater stock market capitalization.

“However, international mergers don’t occur because, first, businesses are not able to reach compatible objectives; second, the alternative – national alliances – always offer better synergies; and last of all, because of the great uncertainty generated by these types of operations,” he said.

Francisco Van d’Archirafi of Citigroup, agreed with Alvarez Rendueles, and outlined other factors that impede international mergers, such as the economic context, weak European growth, and regulations.

Also participating in the meeting was Ana Patricia Botín, president of Banesto; Carlos Trascasa, Boston Consulting Group; Charles Alexander, president of General Electric Capital Europe; Jacobo González-Robatto, managing director of Grupo Barclays; Juan Rodríguez and Matías Rodríguez Inciarte of Grupo Santander; Jaime Echegoyen of Bankinter; IESE alumnus Luis Rullán of “la Caixa”, among others. IESE faculty members Eduard Ballarín, José Manuel Campa, Ahmad Rahnema and Jorge Soley also took part.