Northern village keeps integrity intact

If you think corporate bankers in general have no concept of honesty, the new president of one of the North’s largest business organisations would like to change your mind.

Kevin Kingston, 164th president of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, is also the deputy chief executive and managing director of business banking at Danske Bank in Northern Ireland and he's determined to show – by example – how important "integrity" is in business today.

Kingston is something of a banking veteran having experienced the impact of economic downturns, local political crises, takeovers and short-lived bursts of prosperity over a 20-year career which includes time with KPMG, Ulster Bank and now Danske.

It is his experience in dealing, first-hand, with local firms and large businesses that Kingston says has instilled in him the importance of “values, integrity and relationships”.

But he also believes it is easy to be an “honest” banker in the North. “Northern Ireland is a village and that is a good thing because it keeps everybody honest.

“Everyone gets to know everybody else pretty quickly and you won’t get to pull the wool over someone’s eyes. Maybe someone might try it once but they won’t do it twice.

“Reputation is hugely important for that reason,” Kingston says. “People get to know you and you get to know the quality of people you are dealing with.”

He admits that while being “village sized” may have its positives, it can also create certain drawbacks because it can have the tendency to make the business community slightly insular.

“It is one of the challenges we have to overcome. Businesses need to become more outward looking when it comes to growing exports. They need to have the same attitude that exists in the Republic where they naturally look outwards – and the Northern Ireland Chamber is very committed to helping members expand their businesses by growing exports.

“Over the next year, we must increase the number of exporters. Our local economy is too small so we need to raise our sights. Businesses need to look to where growth is.”

But, as a business leader, he believes Northern Ireland plc may need something a push.

“We need to raise our game in terms of ambition, we need to put the recession mentality behind us and dust ourselves off from what happened and rise to the challenge because we know there are a lot of positive messages about the economy in terms of forecast growth.”

He readily admits that he is a “card-carrying believer” that if the North could secure a lower rate of corporation tax, it would help “shift the economy up a gear”.

“We’ve tried the conventional tools here and the private sector is simply too small. We have to do something different to deliver a step-change.

“There will, of course, be issues with how that impacts on the block grant that we receive and how political leaders manage that but I believe . . . that Northern Ireland needs to do something radical and lowering corporation tax is what makes sense at this time,” Kingston adds.

He believes – judging on what his customers are telling him – that businesses from the large corporates down to family owned small firms, are more optimistic about where the economy is headed over the next 12 months.

“Our lending volumes to SMEs are well up – 15 per cent in the year to date – and last year there was an uplift in demand from larger businesses, which I suspect this year are spending some of the cash reserves they have built up, so there is activity in the market.

“Our business is very simple: we don’t grow and succeed unless our customers are growing and succeeding and, in the last six months, we have had a record number of business customers switching to us. That tells us that businesses are active and looking for opportunities,” he says.