Deloitte financial services rising star awards 2011
Originality, insight and professionalism

Judges of this year’s competition for the coveted Deloitte Financial Services Rising Star Award had no easy task determining an outright winner. The quality exhibited by all four finalists was outstanding.

Ruth Birrell from Bank of Scotland Private Banking is the 2011 Deloitte Financial Services Rising Star. She was named the winner of this year’s highly acclaimed award at a dinner held at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh on September 21.

The Deloitte Financial Services Rising Star Awards 2011 commenced at the start of the year when the Chartered Banker Institute invited nominations from across the financial services industry. The response revealed a wide range of suitable candidates from across the sector who met the high standards set by the challenging criteria.

The aim of the awards is to offer an opportunity for the financial services industry to recognise those who are already making an impression on their organisations. In an increasingly challenging and evolving industry, the awards also aim to inspire debate about key topical issues.

Four finalists battled it out on the night (see panel). Each was asked to prepare a presentation tackling the subject of banking reforms, focusing on the future of cross subsidy and free banking. Ruth was awarded first place after impressing the panel of judges with her wellresearched and insightful recommendations.

Each finalist had distinctive angles on the set topic and, on the night, the judges had no easy task selecting an outright winner. All were saluted for the calibre and diversity of their presentations.

After scooping this year’s title, Ruth was presented with the Deloitte Financial Services Rising Star 2011 trophy and a voucher for an overseas holiday for two.

Launched in 1987 by the Chartered Banker Institute, the awards, which have been supported by Deloitte for the last 10 years, recognise and reward those individuals working in the financial services sector who personify a strong professional ethos, have demonstrated exceptional performance and have made an outstanding contribution to their organisation.

CRAIG COSHAM, Financial Services Partner at Deloitte, says: “Congratulations must go to Ruth on becoming our 2011 Financial Services Rising Star. Competing in the Deloitte Financial Services Rising Star final is a challenging and, at times, daunting task and all of the finalists should be extremely proud of their efforts. The quality of this year’s presentations was outstanding. However, the originality, insight and delivery exhibited by Ruth really set her apart.

“Ruth is a credit to Bank of Scotland Private Banking and I wish her every success in the future.”

Ruth comments: “I feel a huge sense of achievement having been named this year’s Deloitte Financial Services Rising Star. It was a privilege to present my ideas to some of the industry’s most influential figures and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.”

JIM LINDSAY, President of the Chartered Banker Institute, adds: “The calibre of work presented by all of this year’s finalists was exceptional, but Ruth shone out as this year’s Deloitte Financial Services Rising Star after demonstrating exactly the kind of creative thinking, professionalism and knowledge needed to help drive future success in the financial services industry. I am sure she has a long and rewarding career ahead of her.”

Each finalist was nominated by their organisation for having made an outstanding contribution through exceptional performance in one or more areas including customer service, cost control and reduction, innovation and change, risk management, or learning and development.

The judges considered all entries, finally selecting a shortlist of eight individuals. At a private semi-final session, the shortlisted eight gave a presentation to the judges who selected four finalists.

THE FINALISTS:

ALEX KERR is a bank manager for Lloyds Banking Group. During his five years at the organisation, Alex has progressed through various management grades to become a senior bank manager. Under his leadership, branch performances have significantly improved, and Alex has now been enrolled onto Lloyd’s regional talent pool.

AILEEN WALLACE, is a risk manager for Integrated Financial Solutions at Clydesdale Bank. She has fulfilled various roles with the bank, including marketing, network rationalisation and wealth management. In her current position, she has guided her team to develop innovative models and tools for risk management.

FAL MANSOORI is branch manager for Santander in Edinburgh. Her contribution has been immediate, with strong performances in her respective branches, leading her staff to nominate her for a Best Manager award. In her region, Fal has also become People Champion, Savings Champion and Branch of Excellence for Risk and Control for Santander.

RUTH BIRRELL, is manager at Bank of Scotland Private Banking. In addition to her business-as-usual activities, Ruth is also an expert on front-line systems and processes, and she has been instrumental in launching key initiatives across the business.

THE JUDGES:

COLIN MORRISON is Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Education of the Chartered Banker Institute. A graduate of Robert Gordon University, he served as a Senior Lecturer at Edinburgh’s Stevenson College and became Head of Business Studies there in 1990. Colin completed an MEd at Edinburgh University in 1991 and was appointed that year as the Institute’s Director of Education. A Fellow of the Institute, he was appointed Deputy Chief Executive in 2002.

JIM LINDSAY is Chief Executive of Airdrie Savings Bank and President of the Chartered Banker Institute. Before taking charge of the Airdrie Savings Bank in 2000, he spent 27 years with the Royal Bank of Scotland, which he’d joined as a graduate trainee. He became Deputy Secretary in 1985 and Secretary in 1988. He was Local Director for Glasgow in 1991 and from 1995 to 2000 was Assistant Director, Special Projects. Jim has been a Council member of the Institute since 1992.

CRAIG COSHAM is a Financial Services Audit Partner with Deloitte in Edinburgh. He spent his early career serving large listed companies and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2000 with Arthur Andersen. After joining Deloitte in 2002, Craig specialised in financial services and has extensive retail banking and capital markets experience advising a range of financial services institutions. Craig also leads Deloitte’s Treasury Consulting practice in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

JOHN NEEDHAM is Director of Risk, Business Services, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Senior Vice-President, Chartered Banker Institute. John has been with the Royal Bank of Scotland Group for over 30 years. He was previously Director of the Process and Automation workstream in the Consumer Banking 2012 Programme and more recently has been working in the Retail Transformation Programme. He took on his present role in November 2009.

THE CHALLENGE

Given the clamour for simple and transparent banking arrangements, are the days of cross subsidy and free banking numbered? What will customers value? What will customers be willing to pay for from banks in the future? How will this change banking?

THE WINNING RESPONSE

Ruth Birrell tackled the challenge by pointing out that “to understand today and to plan tomorrow, we need to look back and understand where we have come from and what has changed”. She proposed that all banks should offer a suite of accounts, with different charging tariffs geared towards the differing circumstances of their customers. There would also be a much higher degree of transparency with an annual recommendation issued to each customer on whether they should transfer to a more appropriate tariff.

Ruth reflected on “ye olden days of banking”:

• if you had a bank account you paid for it
• banks were a safe place for depositors to keep money
• bank managers had a presence in the local community
• multi-banking was unheard of.

While the 1980s saw a number of changes:

• the rise of demutualised building societies
• the increased competition saw Midland Bank make the bold decision in 1984 to offer free banking
• after attracting 450,000 new clients in the space of a year, the era of free banking was born.

Today however:

• banking is now available to everyone with 24-hour access to manage our money.

“But have we lost what was valued?,” asked Ruth.

• multi-banking is commonplace with each bank holding a smaller share of the customer’s wallet
• the charging structure has gone from being easily understood to complex
• customers have lost trust in their bank and in customers’ eyes, part of the banks are seen as greedy.

“The key message is that the negativity attached to the ‘greedy money’ far outweighs the contribution to the bottom line,” Ruth argued.

“The current charging structure is indisputably complex, so what is the answer?” Ruth asked. “It’s not the concept of free banking that has to be ditched,” she pointed out. What we should do is:

• understand what customers value and deliver a transparent and efficient service that reiterates what has been eroded over time
• rebuild trust and brand loyalty.

Ruth suggested the answer lies in examining customer segmentation and product and channel strategy and offering:

• basic banking – available to everyone and a free of all charges account that fulfils our social responsibility.
• student banking – customers of the future and same principles of basic banking will apply to this segment.
• Tailored banking – different service options for mass market, mass affluent and highnet- worth clients. There would be a range of charging plans similar to mobile phone charging tariffs where customers can choose a plan to meet their individual circumstances.

“Offering a suite of accounts that will give our customers the clarity they need will add genuine value to the banking relationship,” she said.

“What better way to demonstrate customer commitments and the strap lines used by banks today than to offer banking that best suits customers’ needs and circumstances?” Ruth said.

“So let’s learn the lessons of the past and start re-focusing on our customers and re-establishing trust in bankers and in banks.”

Fairburn Trophy

Aileen Wallace of Clydesdale Bank was awarded The Fairbairn Trophy at the end of the evening. The trophy is awarded to the individual who displays the best presentation skills and is voted for by the audience.

Aileen’s thought-provoking presentation was based on the principle that for banks, free transactional banking is too costly, but no one bank wants to be first to introduce a flat fee. Customers, meanwhile, want to have free transactional banking and pay for additional services as they use them.

My challenge: to capture their imagination!

Last year’s winner, RICHARD McKAY, reveals some unexpected aspects of his triumph.

We’d all been set this challenge of suggesting reforms to cut risk and increase trust in banks. It was very topical and a crucial issue for our industry, but I was keen not just to suggest a potentially dry list of highly technical reforms. My aim was to come up with something a bit personal and to tell a lively story around the reforms.

I remember all the research and the practising in the weeks before the presentation. I invested a lot of time in that and it was in the run-up to the big presentation that I felt most nervous. Interestingly, on the day itself, in the last few hours before the event, I felt OK. I didn’t expect that at all.

I guess I’d been over it so many times to get the content exactly right. I’d practised it so often and in front of other people and I felt comfortable with it. My family did suffer listening to my presentation over and over again. I think they knew it by heart, too!

It was particularly valuable presenting it to colleagues and getting their thoughts. I was also able to bounce ideas off the previous year’s winner, Alison Rodger, who’s with our bank in Edinburgh.

Winning the Rising Star Award certainly did increase my profile both inside our bank and externally with business customers. People read about it in the press and I have to admit that was one of the aspects of the win which took me by surprise: I hadn’t expected how colleagues in the bank would take hold of “someone with a good news story”. At the time, it seemed to become bigger than I’d imagined it would.

But it’s genuinely hard to think of any downsides. Having said that, a feature of this competition is that, in a sense, it’s not your choice to enter at all: you’re nominated by your colleagues. And naturally, certain expectations inevitably go with being put on a bit of a pedestal like that. So, one of my underlying concerns was not to let people down.

But I’d certainly have no hesitation about encouraging others to get involved and to “volunteer” their colleagues for the competition. It was very good for my development and I wouldn’t have had that quality of exposure otherwise. Even just taking part is a definite value-added experience.

As a Relationship Manager in our corporate banking team, I’m typically looking after businesses with £15m-plus turnover in a wide spectrum of sectors – manufacturing, food and drink, fishing and, being based in Aberdeen, there’s the heavy representation you’d expect of oil & gas service companies.

It’s a fascinating diversity of business models. I really like getting out to experience that variety. That’s the best part of my job – listening to customers’ plans, seeing around their sites, delving deep into their businesses and devising banking solutions that fit. That’s undoubtedly what I enjoy most.

An award like this is such an honour. But, of course, the prizes that really matter now are all about bringing in the business.

How to “cut risk and build trust”

Richard McKay’s proposed reforms of banking and financial services:

The first risk-reducing phase of government reforms would:

• Force banks to make provision for 50% of every transaction’s credit risk
• Prohibit banks from insuring to cover that 50% retention
• Prohibit holding the 50% retention in off-balance sheet vehicles
• Place a once-only limit on any debt sold on

The second trust-boosting phase would:

• Give all FS employees a year to gain a recognised professional qualification
• Oblige banks to publish a yearly comparative performance report
• Require all banks to offer a risk-averse, ring-fenced product
• Create a Bank of England Intensive Care Team to take control of failing banks

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