ANZ today announced that Carole Berndt has been appointed Managing Director Global Transaction Banking reporting to CEO International and Institutional Banking Andrew Géczy. She will relocate from London to Hong Kong for the role and expects to start in May.  

RBS’s downsizing and Berndt’s impact

Ross McEwan, CEO at RBS, has been cutting operations at RBS dramatically. The Financial Times described the how, “Once the world’s biggest bank with a £2.4tn balance sheet that was as big as the German economy in 2008, RBS is now less than half that size and continues to shrink as rapidly as it grew before the financial crisis.” Her departure from RBS marks the latest in a series of moves at the bank in the last four months. Manfred Schmoelz, RBS’ head of GTS Asia-Pacific, and Anand Pande, global head of trade, left towards the end of last year.

Although Berndt has had a significant impact at RBS since she joined in October 2013 with a whole series of initiatives, including:

• improvement in customer customer service and support, e.g. RBS client onboarding service
• partnered with Taulia to be one of the first banks to offer its corporate clients dynamic discounting with e-invoicing
• launched RMB Cross-border Cash Pooling for multinational companies 
• thinking about the future of the cash management business, see. 

However, it must have been frustrating to work in an organisation which had to downsize so severely, while they were building global products and services

Berndt’s role in ANZ expansion

In ANZ, Berndt will build on ANZ’s product solutions set for global clients managing working capital, as well as having specialist teams in payments and cash management, trade finance, supply chain solutions, structured trade, and clearing.

Commenting on the appointment Mr Géczy said: “Carole has deep international banking experience, having worked in senior roles across Europe, America, Asia and Australia. Her appointment is another example of how ANZ continues to attract high calibre bankers to support the build-out of our client offering.

“Our ambition is to be the leading provider for working capital and supply chain finance solutions across Australia, New Zealand, and the Asia-Pacific. With ANZ's leading market positions in Australia and New Zealand and our growing network of countries, we are connecting with customers across the important trade and investment corridors."

Future of Global Transaction Banking at RBS

Although a few stars have left RBS GTS over the last few months, they still have one of the largest and most efficient global cash management networks, high quality customer service and several innovative products, e.g. SmartCollect for improved reconciliation, and the above examples above. The future is still bright for RBS GTS services and their corporate clients.