Alexander Bunse: From Sparkasse Hamm to Vietnam
1. In which institution of the Sparkassen Finance Group did you start your career and what brought you to the Sparkasse?
At my local or let’s say my “home Sparkasse" in Hamm. In the broadest sense, I started my career there in 2004 as a student intern. During my high school graduation, I applied for an apprenticeship and, after successfully passing the entrance exam, started my dual vocational training as a bank clerk in 2009.
2. How long did you work for this institution? Please describe your Sparkassen-career briefly.
After my vocational training, I started directly serving my own customer base as a private customer advisor in spring 2012. Parallel to starting my career, I began my dual studies at the Sparkassen Finance Group’s University of Applied Sciences for Finance in Bonn, where I successfully received my degree in 2016. In 2014, I decided to move to the sales management department of the Sparkasse Hamm as a consultant. In the same year, I started my advanced training to become a Sparkassen business economist at Sparkassen Academy Münster, which I successfully completed in 2015.
3. When did you start your career at German Sparkassenstiftung and what motivated you to work in international cooperation?
I gained my first experience with German Sparkassenstiftung's work during my 6-month assignment as a junior consultant in Rwanda within the regional project of Eastern Africa. After my time in Rwanda, I returned to my previous position in sales management and then worked in a consulting firm where I specialized in project management with a focus on IT and IT migration. By the fourth quarter of 2019, I returned to German Sparkassenstiftung and flew to Hanoi on Friday, September 13 to take up my current position as Country Director in Vietnam.
My motivation to work in international cooperation and with German Sparkassenstiftung stems from the unequal access to financial services globally. In Europe and Germany, a broad portfolio of financial products and solutions is available to the population. Luckily, financial services there are well established and accessible in the everyday life of the people since the introduction of the Payment Accounts Act and have become safer thanks to the EU financial markets directive. Unfortunately, this is not yet the case in most of our project countries. Only a small percentage of people can participate in payment transactions while the existing financial systems are usually not sufficiently regulated to protect the deposits of savers.
My motivation is therefore to establish the standard and security that the German and European banking landscape has already been guaranteeing its customers for years worldwide and especially in our project region.
4. What valuable experience have you taken with you from your work at Sparkassen Finance Group to your project region?
The experience I have taken with me to the project region is the "genetic code of the Sparkassen" itself. For me, what stands out is that, unlike commercially oriented banks, Sparkassen pass on their earnings to the community of their business area to promote the prosperity of the region, the people and enterprises located there. Instead of just a few investors, everyone participates in the success. In addition, the security of customer deposits always takes precedence over potential profit maximization. In my opinion, these are two of the most important factors in the "Sparkassen" recipe for success that has existed for more than 200 years. The first strengthens the Sparkasse’s own local business community in the long term, while the second helps build lasting customer relationships by fulfilling the trust placed in it.
You can learn more about our projects in Vietnam here.
