Citigroup chief says Ireland must build on financial success

Institute of Bankers president and Citigroup boss Aidan Brady believesR&D grants should be available for those involved in developing financialproducts, writes Una McCaffrey

A funny thing happens when you spend a while in Mr Aidan Brady's Liffey-view office in Dublin's International Financial Services Centre (IFSC).

Maybe it is the lofty situation, or perhaps the vitality of its occupier, but there is definitely a feeling of being sucked into a new world - a world where life operates according to the unchallenged gospel of financial services.

It should be no surprise that it is so, with Mr Brady's position as chief executive of Citigroup in Ireland and boss to no fewer than 1,200 people understandably commanding a degree of respect.

There is also the man himself to consider, however, after five minutes in his company, it becomes obvious he is bathing in some kind of private energy-packed world, the kind of world populated by successful chief executives around the world.

Evidence of this remarkable enthusiasm for work came last year, when Mr Brady agreed to become president of the Institute of Bankers, the main educational body for the Irish financial services industry.

This is a man who arrives at work (by motorbike) at 8 a.m. every morning and stays there until 6.30 p.m. or 7 p.m. He then goes home and spends time with his family before giving another hour or so to his job at night.

Add to this a raft of official appearances at Institute of Bankers' evenings and weekend events and you get a sense of how little free time somebody like Aidan Brady actually has.

"You don't ever really stop," he admits, half-cursing the invention of the Blackberry device, the now seemingly compulsory e-mail-on-the-go companion of busy executives. The thing is though, that he doesn't really seem to mind the intrusions, at least not deep down.

As the first international banker to hold the presidential position since the Institute of Bankers was established a century ago, Mr Brady has crossed an important line between the IFSC and the domestic banking industry.

He has spent a lot of time over the past year on the highways and byways of Ireland, North and South, visiting parts of the country not seen since his childhood.

His travels and attendance at an endless list of sports and education-related functions have served him well, leaving him more convinced than ever of his favourite theory: that financial services is the native industry that Irish people never had.

"I firmly believe that financial services is the industry for Ireland," he says, with evident conviction and pride.

He scoffs at the notion of technology being better-identified with young Irish workers than banking or fund management, suggesting that just because tech-related activity may seem more "sexy", it should not be seen as any more dominant.

It is a notion to which Mr Brady has given some consideration, particularly in light of recent moves to give better tax breaks to companies undertaking "research and development".

Mr Brady believes these tax breaks should also be available to those engaged in research into new financial products and structures - exactly the kind of activity that ambitious firms would like to see growing on the riverbank in Dublin.

He also argues cogently, however, that it is not his job, nor the job of any other chief executives, to bring business into Ireland, noting that this is not what their employers pay them to do. Rather, it is his job to run the Citigroup operation and make sure that what's there keeps whirring along with efficiency.

It is also true that as an Irishman at the helm of a large operation located in Ireland, Mr Brady is prepared to give "that extra whirl" to highlighting "the huge benefits" attached to locating bits of business in the country.

He seems to have done a fairly good job on this so far, with Citigroup's flagship building in North Wall and its 1,200 workers an undeniably impressive sight.

When the office was built in 2001, the company had plans to raise its staff numbers to 2,000.

An economic downturn has intervened since then but Mr Brady says plans are still on track for 1,500 jobs as the operation grows organically and moves away from the idea of "low-cost" employment.

The appeal in building on what is already there is not hard to grasp, with existing structures for areas such as compliance, and financial control capable of taking on new responsibilities just by scaling up a little.

For the moment, the Dublin office accommodates a long list of activities: European cash management and customer services; fund accounting; custody; administration; outsourced supply-side treasury functions; term-life assurance; equity broking; and dealing - and this is just the start.

So how does one keep track of such a wide range of business delights? "You just do," declares 49-year-old Mr Brady with the kind of pragmatism that has presumably been behind his successful career to date.

A native of Dublin's Glasnevin, he completed a BComm in UCD after school and then trained as an accountant with Stokes Kennedy, the forerunner to KPMG. He subsequently moved to ICC Bank, where contemporaries included Mr Colm Doherty of AIB and Mr Brian Murphy of Anglo Irish Bank.

Four and a half years later, Mr Brady turned up in Citibank, where business was at that stage mostly treasury-related. A move into investment banking at the company followed, with a physical shift from St Stephen's Green to the IFSC completing the progression.

At that stage, in 1992, Citibank employed 79 people in the Republic and was only beginning to investigate what the IFSC system could offer. Mr Brady had just been appointed chief executive.

"Ireland was a very small place," he says now, looking back at Citibank Ireland's former target market of foreign multinationals with bases in the Republic. The client list is now substantially longer.

He describes the IFSC as an "amazing success" on many levels, all of which are based on what he sees as the Republic having two fundamental advantages for this business: tax and a well-educated young workforce.

"Irish people are cut out for it," he says, again adding that financial services is a great industry that does not get enough attention. "It gets knocked more than praised for what it has done," he says. "It's perfect for young people. It's got a major international aspect. It's complex and interesting. And it makes us a lot of money."

Mr Brady is fearful, however, that the Irish are becoming complacent about their economic success and forgetting what got them there.

"To be fair to the governments, they had the foresight to do the right thing from the fiscal point of view and the environmental point of view," he acknowledges, before warning that the powers-that-be must remain "aggressive" in the fight to maintain the Republic's 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate in an environment where EU tax harmonisation is always in the background.

Like most other players in the international financial services industry, Mr Brady is very excited about new legislation that will make the Republic more appealing for multinationals seeking a headquarter location.

"While multinationals are fantastic, we have to get the decision-making part here," he says, echoing the IDA's message on the same issue.

Mr Brady is not worried about staff numbers in the IFSC (currently about 11,000) diminishing over the next couple of years as costs rise. He admits that the business is "a revolving door", with just as much activity flowing in as flowing out. "The great thing about globalisation is that it's incredibly democratic," he says.

India and Poland will, he believes, attract the lower skill, lower wage financial services operations, while the Republic will continue to win scaled-up blocks of business from the US and London, as evidenced by Merrill Lynch's recent decision to shift a few hundred London-based jobs to Dublin.

"Outside London and Frankfurt, there is not a location where the industry is as diverse, robust and complex," heargues, using the image to highlight his belief in the value of education in maintaining the Republic's position in financial services.

"You have keep the education zinging along," he says.