At the 35th annual RBI Global Awards on 24 June, Neil McLaughlin, group head, personal and commercial banking at RBC, was recognised as Retail Banker of the Year. To understand why, chair of the judges Douglas Blakey suggests you look at RBC’s recent financial results
Neil McLaughlin’s division generated record earnings of over C$6bn ($4.4bn) in fiscal 2019 – nearly half of RBC’s total earnings of C$13bn, and up 6% from the previous year.
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The personal and commercial banking division added C$50bn of volumes to its market-leading franchises, and attracted nearly 300,000 net new clients to the brand. Notably, the division delivered these results while achieving an all-time-low cost-income ratio of 41.8%, reflecting cost discipline.
But that would only be half the story. Naturally, RBC president and CEO Dave McKay has kept a close eye on McLaughlin’s tenure and success as head of the retail bank, and notes that there is a lot more to his success than just numbers.
“Neil is an excellent leader,” says McKay. “His focus on engaging employees and keeping customers at the centre of everything we do has led to outstanding customer satisfaction scores, above-average volume growth, and market share gains across our core businesses.”
Leading in practically all product lines
RBC holds the number one position across virtually all product lines, and has been consistently recognised with top industry awards, including Best North American Retail Bank and Best Loyalty/Rewards Programme at RBI’s 35th annual Global Awards.
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By GlobalDataFor the second year in a row, it also swept all 11 categories among the big five banks in Canada in the Ipsos Financial Service Excellence Awards, including Customer Service Excellence.
Add to that the accolades RBC has received from the investor community. As a global investor from Capital Group noted: “I don’t know who will be standing in 20 years, but RBC likely has the best chance.”
Reflecting McLaughlin and his team’s management and ongoing innovation focus, Scotiabank analyst Sumit Malhotra says:
“While we expect slower top-line trends across the sector, we have greater confidence in RBC to manage the revenue-vs-expense-growth dynamic in any environment, particularly as the bank has been at the forefront from a technology spend and innovation perspective for a number of years.”
Clients first and always
At the heart of RBC’s success is its drive to provide better and surprisingly different experiences to its 14 million clients – pushing the boundaries of possibility. McLaughlin’s focus is squarely on becoming more relevant and engaged with clients while delivering superior value.
Validation for the strategy is demonstrated by the business’s market-leading client loyalty scores. As of December 2019, RBC had leading Net Promoter Score results at 69.99 for client loyalty and 75.19 for branch.
The numbers reflect both the quality of service and products, along with how RBC has transformed the loyalty landscape in Canada via its proprietary rewards programme.
RBC’s ability to attract and retain clients speaks to the strength and expertise of the team McLaughlin has assembled in retail banking – from the visionary leaders on his management team to the thousands of dedicated front-line staff across Canada, the US and the Caribbean.
Moreover, the bank’s annual employee opinion survey results speak to the strength of employee engagement. At 64%, engagement is 14 points higher than the benchmark set by high-performing companies – a significant lead, and an indication of employee willingness to go that extra mile.
While consistently delivering strong results, McLaughlin is looking at the long game. His vision for the retail bank goes well beyond the next quarter or year; that is where innovation comes to play.
A proven record of industry firsts
With its proven track record of industry firsts, like first cloud-based payment solution RBC Secure Cloud, or the launch of the first AI-driven savings product, NOMI Find & Save, the company’s approach is not innovation for innovation sake: it is about making banking easy, convenient and helpful.
“As banking continues to evolve, it becomes more important to deliver new and innovative ways to connect with clients,” says McLaughlin. “We are focused on getting solutions into our clients’ hands faster – from idea to implementation – focusing on both short-term wins and longer-term transformative programmes.”
For example, RBC is partnering with academia, market disruptors and a network of incubators through California-based EvoNexus, to focus on transformative technology such as AI, machine learning, predictive behaviour analytics and payment technology.
“Technology is fundamentally changing retail banking, and Neil’s ability to balance meeting the needs of our clients today with investing in the future is key to the success of our strategy to becoming a digitally enabled relationship bank,” adds McKay.
A leadership that transcends the bank
McLaughlin’s leadership extends beyond the bank. Reflecting RBC’s purpose of helping clients thrive and communities prosper, he reaches out to build stronger communities, and encourages his team to do the same.
His passion for youth and education in particular is reflected in his involvement with the International Development & Relief Foundation (IDRF)’s Get Job Ready youth programmes.
RBC’s support of IDRF falls under its Future Launch initiative – a 10- year, C$500m commitment to help young Canadians gain access and opportunities to the skills, job experience and career networks they need. McLaughlin is thrilled to see the reach and impact on diverse youth through IDRF’s youth programme.
“Thanks to Neil’s championship, we’ve been able to help over 10,000 marginalised youths from at-risk communities across Canada over the past two years,” says IDRF programmes director Nabil Ali.
