Our Philosophy

I worked for a major UK bank for 31 years, and during that time I saw the impact that recession and economic cycles can have on both business and individuals. Equally, in roles that encompassed commercial relationship banking, sales leadership, business development and operational and people management, I came to the conclusion that banking is an industry where structure and policy was far more important than the relationships between client and employee, or so it seemed. Despite the rhetoric and considerable training budgets allocated to delivering brilliant customer service, the fact dawned on me that banking was too large and cumbersome an animal to ever deliver a true relationship for the mass market. The industry relied on the fact that it was available to the, “masses” to make its profit numbers work,  and so needed policy and structure to make it manageable whilst telling the world that it was committed to ”empowerment”, “customer centricity” and other buzzwords that make brilliant sound-bites, but are impossible to achieve within the structure in such a mass market player.

I saw several people try and indeed succeed short term in creating a brilliant environment for customers and staff alike, but very few ever survived in the longer term as they became victims of the machine that is policy and structure. It is those revolutionaries whom I suspect will still have clients reminiscing about ”the good old days” and who really understand that the answer is simple, a relationship has two people in it, not one. Asset2Asset is my personal revolution to take relationship back to the way it used to be, built on trust a sustainable asset whether times are good or bad. Give us a try, I promise we won’t disappoint,

Tony Highland

Managing Director