National Bank wins Small Business Support Award

22 July 2005
For immediate release

National Bank wins Small Business Support Award

The National Bank is delighted to have won the corporate section of the inaugural Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards that were announced last night. These awards recognise and set apart those entities that have a demonstrable understanding of business owners’ needs and help support small business growth in New Zealand.

The award entries were independently evaluated by the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation and are designed to recognise excellence in the quality of services offered to small businesses of New Zealand. Vero, the Ministry of Economic Development, and Enterprise and Trade New Zealand sponsor the awards.

Bruce Lambert, General Manager, Business Banking for The National Bank said today: “The National Bank takes the small business banking market very seriously. We have worked hard to develop a suite of products and services that meet not only their core banking needs but help them to build better businesses, and make business easier.”

“Our greatest advantage is our understanding of what small business operators want and need to succeed. One of our first activities as a division was to undertake extensive customer research. The knowledge and understanding we gained formed the basis of our business banking strategy.

“We provide local business managers to all of our customers, and we deliver practical resources, planning tools and information for our small business customers that is unique in New Zealand – resources that help our customers succeed in their business,” Mr Lambert said.

The National Bank has developed a Business Resource Centre – with an ‘Ask the Expert’ facility, more than 160 Solution Guides about issues that small businesses face; seminar programmes and planning tools that are both software and paper-based.

“We recognise that each of our business banking customers is unique and success means different things to different people. We work with each business to help them achieve success in their terms.

“We are privileged to work closely with people who have the ideas, skills and energy that are required to create successful businesses. The success of our customers is what motivates the success of our Business Banking managers,” Mr Lambert said.

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