Part one of the Kalff interviewPart two of the Kalff interviewPart three of the Kalff interviewPart four of the Kalff interview"I always wanted to be a banker"Conservative but dynamicA marriage of necessityWill the new European currency make a big difference to this bank? Yes. We're a European bank and Europe is so important to us. But the guilder is already virtually the same as the Deutschmark. True. But it's systems that will present the major problem. Can you imagine: we have to change 10,000 systems to be ready for the advent of the euro in 15 months from now. It's an incredibly complicated administrative act. We expect to spend over fls500 million on the euro. That's a lot of money. We've already set the sum aside. That's proof of our conservatism because most of the money still has to be spent. Not even fls100 million has been spent so far. The expenditure is all on systems? Almost all of it is, but we've also run roadshows around the world and produced brochures to publicize the euro. |