The Banking Association for Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Bank Network co-

celebrated their 10th anniversary by organising of an international banking conference on Customer Relationship Management.

The two separate though similar banking clubs held a two-day conference in Budapest last month entitled “Building Better Customer Relationships”. Topics such as “CRM: Understanding Relationships”, “Relationship Management: The Skills”, “Ebanking 24/7– Is automation the opposite of Relationship Banking”, “Managing Relationships – The Tools”, “'Training for Relationship Management” and “Customer Loyalty”, were covered.

The conference participants came principally from banks in the Mediterranean and Central-Eastern European financial markets. The conference specifically targeted the e-banking departments, sales/marketing, human resources, IT divisions and CRM units in such banks. The event was an excellent business networking activity as bankers from the organisations' respective members were present.

The MBN and the BACEE have operated as banking associations in their respective markets since 1996 with members from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. This type of institutional co-operation was a first and proved to be successful as more business co-operation is envisaged, given the potential that exists in combined projects and business synergies for the MBN and BACEE.