Laurentian Bank had simply forgotten the importance of its customers and employees.
In October 2020, Laurentian Bank announced the appointment of Rania
Llewellyn as President and Chief Executive Officer. She joined the Quebec institution after a 26-year career at Scotiabank. Its roadmap was noted that it “reflects its dynamism, as well as its capacity as a fine strategist, focused on the customer experience and tangible results”.
She replaced Stéphane Therrien, who had agreed to take over the interim during the four months following the departure of François Desjardins. Mr. Therrien left the institution in December of the same year.
The announcement of the retirement of François Desjardins, at the age of 49, in the midst of a health crisis, surprised the financial community. President since 2015, he had committed the institution to a vast transformation program including the end of counter services in favor of consulting services, which was not without generating tensions between management and staff, tensions amplified by acrimonious negotiations with unionized employees. A problematic mortgage case also consumed a lot of time, money and energy.
Invited by Press commenting on the departure of François Desjardins, Michel Magnan, professor at Concordia University and specialist in governance, noted that “he was ambitious and daring in wanting to transform an organization that has existed for 175 years to make it switch to digital . Did he have a choice? Laurentian is small in front of giants. You have to do something different or else you won’t survive. We had to stand out ”.
But the strained relations with the employees under his guidance and a customer experience which, in Mr.me Llewellyn, remains “complex” at Laurentian, added to the delays of a transformation plan which was to be completed in 2020 and which contained many technological hiccups. In the text of The Canadian Press (opposite), the new CEO talks about a strategy without execution. “I mean adopting a cashless branch office model without having the technological infrastructure to support this kind of change. “
She cites this lack of a mobile application, a void that is beginning to be filled, a crucial element in a digital transformation plan and which was not without causing a decline in bank deposits. The bank also had to focus on better equipping its mortgage business, citing “a complicated customer experience, cumbersome processes”, verifications taking days instead of seconds, and approval times dropping from weeks to weeks. A few days. In the midst of the real estate frenzy, the institution’s mortgage loan portfolio stalled or even fell back.
Personal banking services
The manager specifies in her plan that she wants to reposition personal banking services “first and foremost as a digital bank that redefines the customer experience and offers a more human approach”.
We must also put in the balance sheet of the François Desjardins era this decision, which had not been seen for almost three decades in the financial sector, to cut the quarterly dividend by some 40%, from $ 0.67 to $ 0.40. . The board of directors has just announced a 10% increase to $ 0.44.
Analysts pointed out that Mme Llewellyn could also count on a decertification of the union, within the bank, which could facilitate the transformation. Some also believe that the likelihood of Laurentian changing hands is increased.