SCOTLAND’S expertise and innovation in the financial services industry can play a leading role in helping other nations develop advanced services in their home countries, the head of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland (CIBS) said today.
Professor Charles Munn, chief executive of the CIBS, said feedback from the 148 delegates from 44 countries at the 55th International Banking Summer School in Edinburgh had been "very positive" about the extent of developments here.
Prof Munn sai
d the hosting of the annual summer school in Scotland for the first time in 20 years had presented a significant opportunity for the country’s financial services industry to "showcase" itself.
He said: "A lot of the delegates come from countries relatively unaware that Scotland has such a large and powerful financial services sector."
Prof Munn said the school’s theme - Innovation and Change Management - was chosen because in Scotland "business [in financial services] today was somewhat further advanced than in many other countries".
A host of Scotland’s senior finance executives are speaking at the ten-day programme, including the chief executives of Intelligent Finance, Lloyds TSB Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks.
Prof Munn said delegates had praised the creation from scratch of the Edinburgh-based tele-net bank Intelligent Finance (IF) - part of the HBoS group - as well as moves by banks such as Lloyds TSB to open up banking to those previously excluded from access to financial services.
"Jim Spowart’s message on setting up Intelligent Finance from scratch was well received but he also cautioned that technology is only a channel for delivery and that the product offered needed to be good to survive," he said.
Prof Munn said Susan Rice, the chief executive of Lloyds TSB Scotland, had also impressed delegates with her outlook on "banking the unbanked".
Prof Munn said: "That was well received from delegates from Africa. Here about ten per cent of the population is unbanked, but in some African countries that percentage can be as high as 80 per cent. That represents great growth opportunities."
CIBS is the world’s oldest financial body and Prof Munn became chief executive in 1988.
Des Moore, an area manager with Ireland’s Permanent TSB and a Fellow of the Institute of Bankers in Ireland, said the profile of Scotland’s financial services sector had "risen sharply" in Ireland, where the Royal Bank of Scotland now owns Ulster Bank.
He added: "The way the Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland have been involved in the recent takeover of NatWest and the merger with Halifax shows the power and innovation of the finance sector in Scotland in a very practical way."
The full article contains 472 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
