Over nearly 15 years with the Bank of Bermuda, Alan Richardson may be best remembered for the decade he spent at the helm of the bank's retail division.

Although Mr. Richardson was posted as head of banking and lending products last year, he counts a highlight of his banking career as his time at the head of retail client business from 1991. During his tenure in retail Mr. Richardson was instrumental in transforming a department that had historically been a financial drain on the bank's overall bottom line into a profit-turning division.

Mr. Richardson, who leaves the Island's largest bank next week, reflected yesterday with The Royal Gazette on the highlights and challenges of his banking career.

He said: "Certainly one of the highlights (of my career) would have been my decision to join the retail client division in 1991. I wanted to be on the domestic side of the bank's activities. Beyond that I was very blessed to come behind (now CEO) Henry Smith who was heading the retail division at that time. He provided access, opportunities and more importantly provided support for me to develop my business ideas and thoughts in a very collaborative and supportive way." Mr. Richardson added: "Retail banking activity had been a losing operation for the bank and I take a certain measure of pride of place, along with a number of other people on the retail client group, in transforming it to a division contributing very, very positively to the bank's operating results.

Mr. Richardson said the turn around took approximately three years of "attention and focus" on many aspects of the operation to transform it into a positively contributing unit of the organisation. And Mr. Richardson said technology, including a network of automated teller machines, telephone banking and the bank's Internet platform Easylink Online, had been key in the transformation: "There is no question that they would have contributed significantly in terms of creating both time, value and convenience for customers." The bank launched its retail Internet platform earlier this year, more than a year after rival Bank of Butterfield launched its online banking system. But Mr. Richardson stood behind the bank's timing of its Internet launch: "Firstly we were concerned with the overall level of security that we wanted to have in place before we launched the system. We needed to ensure that this was a very, very secure Internet-based application. "Secondly, one of the very important distinctions between the (two bank's) Internet platforms is ours is an online, real time based application. As you transfer money between accounts, those funds are immediately available so you can effect a transfer and go directly to an ATM and make a cash withdrawal." Ultimately Mr. Richardson said technologies implemented had been cost-saving for the bank, but had not reduced the need for retail banking staff: "Technology (platforms) did not lead to a reduction the number of tellers. The demand for personal service has remained high despite the fact that we've seen a very, very significant increase in our electronic transactions, the demand for personal service has increased at the same time." Mr. Richardson said this was due to a net gain in customers and an increasingly demanding public looking for expanded bank services.

Although Mr. Richardson said he personally was able to transact most of his banking needs electronically and rarely needed to go into a banking hall, he said the bank has had to deliver on customers expectation of first class service.

"Quite frankly if we are going to position ourselves as a world-class bank then we have to be able to provide world class service at each point where a customer touches us," he said, adding that the Bank of Bermuda had achieved a high level of customer service.

"We have provided ongoing technical product knowledge and customer service training to make sure that our people could both meet and exceed customer service expectations." But Mr. Richardson said hiring and staff retention has proved challenging: "A challenge that is particularly unique in Bermuda is that we are drawing from a very small pool of people - major companies are hiring and trying to retain customer service staff from a population of 60,000 - so the ability to first of all find and identify people and then retain them is difficult.

That does represent a challenge especially when this economy is very customer service based," he said. Looking at other challenges that have faced the bank during his 15-year career, Mr. Richardson spoke of the bank's listing on the US exchange Nasdaq earlier this year.

Although not directly involved in the process, which required a stringent application process and approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mr. Richardson said as a member of the bank's executive he had been involved in local discussions with regulators and Ministry of Finance.

Since listing the bank's market capitalisation has taken a beating with shares falling from a high of $50 to a low in recent days with trading below $30 per share. When asked if there were any regrets on launching at this time and the resulting exposure to the volatility of global markets, Mr. Richardson said: "It is fairly well documented that the benefits of the Nasdaq listing were to provide the bank with access to capital. And also to quite frankly to be consistent with the bank's international and global profile.

"The Bermuda market is a relatively illiquid market and as a result this often did not reflect the underlying fundamentals and evaluation of our shares based on stock market results." He added: "We have been through one of the most unusual times with both the precipitous decline in interest rates seen in the last 15 months. And quite unusually we have also seen at the same time the equity markets depressed as well. That is unusual as typically when interest rates drop, usually equity markets will rise at the same time. The natural hedge that was always present in our business has not been there. That has made this an unusual time." In addition, Mr. Richardson said: "The other factor has been the very, very negative sentiment in the market arising from the problems of Enron and World Com.

There is no question that we were affected but we have also seen the markets start to rebound now." Speaking further, Mr. Richardson said: "We have experienced a number of challenges during my 14 years at the bank - in recent years those have included the bank posting several multi-million dollar losses including the high profile Cash4Titles fraud - but I don't look at any of them as absolute lows. None of them have been catastrophic. Certainly Cash4Titles had a significant impact, along with other losses, on the bank's results. But these have also been opportunities for learning and growth on a corporate and personal level."Mr. Richardson, tongue in cheek, concluded that his only real regret was the long hours had kept him from developing his golf game: "I had the potential to be the next Tiger Woods of Bermuda."