Value context and insight. lkm@koreatimes.co.kr
INTERVIEW Korea's dynamism drives continued innovation
Citibank Korea Consumer Banking Group head Valentin Valderrabano speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at Young City south building in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, Oct. 22 / Courtesy of Citibank Korea
By Lee Kyung-min
Citibank Korea MD says reinforcing positive feedback loop secret to wealth management
By Lee Kyung-min
Things change quickly in Korea.
Different coffee shops, for example, open in certain busy commercial areas with hundreds of people lined up just to taste a certain new brew at a place mentioned as one of the most “hot and hip” venues by social media users.
But then, customers like it or don't like it, and after 30 to 60 days they are gone.
Few would draw any insight from this. But to a senior banker who constantly thinks about making customers happy, it is precisely how he integrates observation into his business philosophy.
“It is exciting because it keeps us very focused,” Citibank Korea Consumer Banking Group head Valentin Valderrabano, 48, said in an interview with The Korea Times at Young City south building in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, Oct. 22.
To many, the need to monitor the trends and understand the technology to review and improve customer satisfaction is a pressure, but not to the consumer banking specialist with 16 years of experience.
“It keeps us alive and energized. I see that as an advantage actually,” the Citibank Korea managing director said.
One example of simpler and faster services developed to meet the needs of highly discerning customers with fast-changing tastes is Citibank Korea's Easy Digital Onboarding process.
The award-winning technology allows online transactions without using the much-dreaded “public key certificate,” a time-consuming method of protection against fraud or other illicit financial transactions widely criticized as a hassle.
In 2017 the service won the top prize awarded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, the predecessor of the Ministry of Science and ICT, among many other awards given in recognition of its innovative, tailored and customer needs-based services.
Citibank was the first bank to have won the prize, mostly reserved for IT firms.
Citibank Korea would not have been able to develop the technology had it not paid the utmost attention to cater to customers' needs and wants in a country with a very dynamic environment.
“Korea is probably one of the most dynamic ones that I have worked in,” said Valderrabano who has worked in six countries ― Greece, Spain, Belgium, England, the U.S. and Singapore.
Valderrabano also attributed the success to the goal-specific, driven and focused group of workers at Citibank Korea.
“The Korea team is one of the strongest teams I have worked with. I am very proud to say that. Once we agree on a goal or a specific objective, the ability for everyone to come together to execute the plan is quite, quite impressive.”
Such high regard is all the more meaningful given he values his team the most.
Valderrabano understands that workers with required skillsets for decision management, business technology and infrastructure need an environment to flourish, a reason he designed the workspace to help them be collaborative and work across different teams with necessary technologies.
“Happy employees make happy customers. We created an environment to let them choose where they can work best.”
Feedback is gift
Valderrabano first came to Korea 2014 and he oversaw a major business model transformation in 2017 from sales of an individual product to a model portfolio to better tend to customers with different goals, needs, objectives and risk appetites.
Only about a year later, his leadership initiative has translated into results. Citibank Korea saw its Assetsa Under Management (AUM) grow 14 percent in 2019 from a year earlier.
The bank's top-tier customer group Citi Private Client (CPC) with assets over $1 million (11.7 billion won) has grown 13 percent year to date in 2019. Its foreign currency deposits have almost doubled from 2018 to 2019.
All of the success came from reinforcing positive feedback loops, a secret not only to flourishing business but also maintaining and retaining the top pool of talented employees.
“Feedback is a gift. It allows us to improve, and at the same time allows us to repeat the good things that we do,” said Valderrabano who graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology where he obtained a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering.
He holds an MBA from Georgetown University and a Master's Degree in Finance from the London Business School.
At lunches with top customers every month or quarter, Citibank relationship managers have open and honest conversations about how they can help customers see and feel improvements.
“Usually customers are very open in terms of what works and what does not. They like that it is a package, a combination of products diversified across different geographies and different asset classes, not an individual product exposed to the market. We internalize the feedback very quickly. How quickly we act upon it depends on teams, infrastructure and technologies.”
Digital partnership, platform
Digital partnerships via strengthening the digital platform are a must given that 97 percent of transactions happen outside bank branches.
This means being present at customers' locations, including in the ecosystems and platforms where products and services can be offered.
Both collaboration and competition with fintechs are inevitable in the process, but more focus should be put on the former.
“There is no doubt that in today's environment, we have to find a way to collaborate. We should think about how to come together to offer customers an entire set of products and services on, for example, aggregators that offer different types of services,” he said.