Banking on plenty of diversity

Promoting excellence in other businesses is a no-brainer for Westpac area manager Steve Pinder.
The bank has sponsored the Westpac Rotorua Business Excellence awards since 2005 and is committed through to 2013.
"Supporting business excellence not only helps the local business community, but also the banks. Stronger business helps everybody."
Leading a team out in the business community gives Steve a pretty good feel for where firms are at but banking is a job he "sort of stumbled into".
He started out shovelling grain into silos at a factory in a small village in Kent, in his native England.
"It was dark, dusty, sweaty and tiring work. I learned, whatever job you do, there is something satisfying in the act of work - of doing a good job and getting rewarded for it."
But Steve also learned shovelling grain was not a long-term career option for him. He went on to spend 20 years with NatWest/Royal Bank of Scotland, working his way up to head of training and development and marketing and internal communications for the bank's asset finance division.
In 1990, he met a Rotorua girl on her OE. He and Colleen married in Rotorua in 1992 but it took another 12 years before this "amazing lady" managed to drag him back to New Zealand permanently.
"We moved in with Colleen's father in Rotorua until I sorted out a job. After touring around the country, having interviews in Auckland and Wellington, we decided we actually wanted to stay here in Rotorua. After buying a house, the job turned up - fate I guess."
It's a job Steve enjoys because it gives him an opportunity to make a difference in people's lives.
"It may sound a bit corny, but it's true. I love working with my team, I love talking to customers ... I love talking actually."
Banking also provides plenty of day-to-day diversity and he recommends anybody thinking of a career in the industry to go for it. "The chance to visit and talk to many different businesses about their passion provides a daily variety that is hard to match. A career in banking is a lot more interesting, exciting, challenging and fun than you may think."
Steve says banking offers roles to suit everybody and there is potential for learning and development and progress through a large organisation.
Banks have received flak for over-lending before the recession and are now being criticised for making it too difficult to borrow, but he says the criteria for lending have always been the same.
"Can we secure our debt, can the business service the debt and does the use of the money make sense? This hasn't changed."
Although the wider business market has reduced lending by more than $5 billion, Steve says Westpac has actually increased its business lending by $200 million. "We are open for business and I feel privileged to work with businesses in Rotorua to achieve their dreams."
 
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Contact business editor Julie Taylor on (07) 348 6199 ext 57015 or at business@dailypost.co.nz