News

Grayling Speakers' Lounge: The future of the banking system

Posted 21.01.2010

Willibald Cernko, CEO of Central and Eastern Europe for Bank Austria, was the guest speaker at the Speakers’ Lounge hosted by Grayling Austria. He discussed the aftermath of the economic crisis, changes that had occurred as a result and questioned whether banks had learnt their lesson since its outbreak. He believes that there has been a banking perception shift, he commented, "Short-term profit maximization has been replaced by medium-term to long-term targets." He also demanded politicians develop a European regulatory system for the future and when asked how the Bank Austria would look in five years time, he was quite clear, “consolidated”, he said.

Cernko specified that the Bank Austria had put in place several measures since the crisis in order to strengthen their multi-purpose banking system. The customer has very much become their focus and corporate reputation is their priority. Indeed, external perception is so fundamental to the banks success that the banks bonus system for all 120.000 UniCredit employees is directly linked to customer satisfaction reports. The speakers lounge was hosted by Sepp Tschernutter, CEO Grayling Austria and was attended by over 30 people including key journalists and other industry experts.