Carmen, you are Head of Deposit business, what is deposit business, and what does your job involve?
Deposit business inside of the group is an online bank for savings and term deposits. We guarantee the transparent and responsible use of the funds that each customer entrusts to us, with the collected deposits contributing to refinancing the automotive loans granted to the customers and networks of the Alliance brands.
For example, in France we have Zesto, in Germany and Austria we have Renault Bank direkt, and in the UK we have RCI Bank.
I am responsible for all activities regarding the deposits in Germany like all the customer processes, the website, the online banking, the digital application for customers and also all the back-office processes, managing the bank system and all the relevant reportings. And since we are a digital bank, we are working a lot on a project basis to develop innovative functionalities for the customer. Right now, we are working on implementing a chatbot for example.
Could you summarize your career path within the group? How do you view your experience at RCI Bank and Services so far?
I started with being responsible for the website and online-marketing for Renault Bank direct and now I am manager of the team. But due to the many projects during the last seven years it has never been boring. On the contrary I had so many exciting projects during that time, that it is always a nice challenge. And also, the plans for the German deposit business sound very promising that my job stays exciting.
What do you think of your role as a manager?
I like a lot being a manager. It is always fascinating to see how people that you hire develop within the company. Deposit business is fully digital, so I have a lot of young people in my team, and I can follow their whole career path, for example from a trainee to a manager. Besides I have a very heterogeneous team with people of different ages, backgrounds and characters and for me it is very fulfilling to see how this mixture creates a creative and supportive environment, where it is fun to work. When I started in deposit business, we were two people and by now we are nine people including me and two trainees.
What are the particularities of working in the banking sector?
The banking sector underlies a lot of different regulatory requirements. When I started here, I wasn’t used to have to check all texts on the website with legal and I never had anything to do with tax requirements for example. But this is one of the challenges that make the job so interesting and diversified. In addition, I didn’t have so many and so big “numbers” in my previous job. In the beginning it was weird for me to talk in million Euros instead of Euros.
What do you like about your job?
I like the variety of my job. The mixture between being a manager, being creative for the online-marketing part of my job, being analytic for the financial part and using my organizational skills for the definition of processes and the organization of projects.
