New Edition of the Worldwide Bestseller - with Best Russian Business Cases

    MOSCOW, RUSSIA, December 07, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Business practices of Russia's Life Financial Group were highly appreciated by "The Financial Times" and financial advisers of leading international consulting organizations such as WODW and 9SENSES. This is proven by the inclusion of select business-cases from the Life Group in the new edition of the bestselling business book "Reinventing Financial Services What Consumers Expect from Future Banks and Insurers".

The Life Financial Group, which comprises seven financial organizations operating on the Russian market, became the only Russian company, whose business cases have been included in the book "Reinventing Financial Services: What Consumers Expect From Future Banks And Insurers".

This fact underlines once again the high standards of customer focused business of the Group, the excellent work of its management team and the successful implementation of leading technologies to build the qualitatively new "Bank-Client" paradigm in Group's banks.

The participation of the Life Group in the new edition of the book in the capacity of a leading expert on the Russian financial market is not only recognition of the achievements of the Group's team, but also reflects one of the basic tendencies of the world and Russian financial market: the very conservative business sector is re-orienting its focus towards the client.

Sergey Leontiev, President of the Life Financial Group: "A client-centered, open, mobile and innovative company with whom it is easy and pleasant to work - that is the bank we're aiming to be. In Russia banks are usually perceived as clumsy, slow, hierarchical organizations that are not aware of their clients' needs and make decisions bureaucratically, listening only to its own departments and employees, not consumers. We want to destroy this stereotype! The bank should have a human face."

How to build a successful and effective team of like-minded people is the message of one of the Group's cases, published in the book and devoted to their unique system of the personnel assessment. In addition, the book also includes best practices surrounding reconsideration the Mystery Shopper concept by the Group's management from the client-centered point of view. The story about using an essentially new WOW-approach to build a corporate culture in a wide retail network with the help of professional competence new to the Russian market completes the list of best practices from the Life Financial Group in the new edition of "Reinventing Financial Services What Consumers Expect from Future Banks and Insurers".

According to Sergey Leontiev, President of the Life Financial Group, "Companies which are not focusing their attention on the client, in the long-term perspective will always lose out to those who develop strong partner relations with them. From a customer-oriented model of business you can receive stable, long-term effect only building a special culture based on customer-values at all levels of the company. It is also very important to have a special control system integrated in all business processes which lets you reveal, realize and scale the best ideas, the best management practices for improving your client's and partner's loyalty."

The Life Financial Group - is a Russian financial holding company that unites 7 independent commercial banks with significant market share in their regions where they are present. The banks of the Group have been working on the Russian financial market more than 16 years. The Group is represented by 500 offices in 65 regions of Russia. The total number of Group employees exceeds 8,500. On April 1, 2011 FG "Life" was serving 33,000 businesses and 1,2 million persons. According to the consolidated financial statement, at the end of 2010 the assets of the Financial Group Life amounted to 2,67 bln euro and the credit portfolio for the same reporting period stood at over 1,25 bln euro. The group holds 11th place in the volume of unsecured loans issued in 2010 and 11th place in the number of loans granted to small and medium-sized businesses in Russia. The Life Financial Group has the international award BSC Hall of Fame as an innovator in retail banking products. In four years, its assets grew 329%, and operating income increased more than six fold. With strategy formulated at the top and executed from the bottom by all employees, FGL has made strategy everyone's job, enjoying growth rates exceeding the overall market. The Group has a strong partnership with leading international financial organizations such as Wells Fargo, Standard Chartered, Commerzbank etc.

"Reinventing Financial Services: What Consumers Expect from Future Banks and Insurers" is a well-known bestseller who was published 4 times in UK. The presentation of the first Russian edition is going to be held December 8th. The foreword was written by Sergey Leontiev, the President of the Life Financial Group. The authors of the book are Roger Peverelli and Reggy de Feniks. Roger Peverelli is a partner at VODW, a leading strategy consultancy operating out of The Netherlands, and an expert in strategy, innovation and building customer centric organisations in financial services. Reggy de Feniksis founding partner at 9senses, strategy and marketing consultants, based in Barcelona, Spain. VODW was founded in 1983. With 100 professionals VODW occupies a leading international position in strategy consultancy, dedicated to helping clients dramatically improve their market performance. VODW is based in the Netherlands, and operates worldwide. 9senses is a strategy consultancy based in Barcelona, Spain and working worldwide in various industries, amongst which financial services. 9senses is an international partner of VODW.

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