The document provides a summary from Damianos Charalampidis, the Group COO of National Bank of Greece, on the bank's transformation efforts during the Greek financial crisis. It discusses how the bank underwent a radical reorganization of IT services, improved customer service through process redesign, and substantially reduced costs. It also describes how the bank seamlessly integrated two other banks. The document then outlines the challenges of managing capital controls imposed in Greece, including a forced digitization of customers and adjusting processes in real-time. Finally, it discusses opportunities for the bank moving forward in the post-capital controls era.

1. Navigating the Crisis:
A COO perspective on (digital)
transformation and the road ahead
Athens, September 2015
Damianos Charalampidis, Group COO
National Bank of Greece

2. 1D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
A. A Bank transformation while in crisis
 Radical reorganization and enhancing of IT services
 Customer service improvement through process redesign
 Substantial cost reduction
 Seamless integration of 2 banks
 A new regulatory framework
B. Managing Capital Controls: Facing a new reality
 “Forced digitization” of the customer base
 Absorbing extraordinary workloads
 Adjusting processes “on the fly”
C. The opportunity ahead in the post capital controls era
 Can capital controls also lead to a positive long-term effect on NBG’s operations?
 Insights from the telco world: Where banking needs to go
A COO perspective on (digital) transformation during the crisis

3. 2D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
Core of the Ops transformation has been a radical reorganization and
redesign of IT services
A
Organizational redesign to
resolve chronic issues
• Establishment of a Group IT
Governance Division
• Establishment of Business
Analysis Division
• Establishment of CISO role
• Integration of “Ethnodata”
in the IT organizational
structure
• Creation of a Project
Management Office (PMO)
Setting up a PMO to align IT with business targets
• Priorities setting
• Approval of new
projects
• Monitoring of progress
IT Units
Project
Managment
Office (PMO)
Units of
the Bank
New requests Implementation
Request
document-
tation
• Priorities suggestions
• Progress reports
Project
sizing
Project
approval
committee
Executive
Committee
• Decision making
• Monitoring of
strategic projectsThe reality coming in
• ~1.000 requests
per semester,
unorganized, with
no prioritization
• Endless project
implementation
times

4. 3D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
Visible and sustained results: (Over-)doubling of IT productivity since
2013 with >75% of requests fulfilled
Double IT productivity vs. 2013 (despite VRS-based reduction
of personnel by ~20%)…
2013 Total
Projects*
2015
(Ε)
2014
+ 104%
+ 7%
…representing ~75% of total request submitted
(Summary of submitted requests, Jan 2013 - Dec 2014)
Total requests
submitted
Requests
fulfilled
Requests in
process
Requests
under
investigation/
stand by
The implementation of
minor projects is done
without further
approvals (FIFO logic)
2.776
341
3.601
484
A
* IT projects over 10 mandays, potentially bundling multiple requests

5. 4D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
A major process redesign journey was also embarked: Increasing
efficiency while improving customer service
Key challenges identified (and indicative processing times)
31%
24% 24%
9%
5% 7%
Average time: 10 days
0-3
days
4-7
days
8-14
days
15-21
days
22-28
days
>28
days
• Focus on 12 basic roles and14 key processes (teller
transactions, lending, restructuring)
• A larger number of standardized and repetitive tasks ,
control checks and back-office functions that are carried
out by the branches
• Partial process automation and need to access multiple
systems for task processing
• Identified complicated procedures and fragmentation of
roles and responsibilities between headquarters and
branches resulting to time-consuming costumer service
• Housing loans restructuring (end-to-end):
average time 28 days
• Consumer loans restructuring (end-to-end):
average time 17 days
The time required for the control check is
more than the 3 day set threshold in 70% of
the cases
Indicative customer service: Required completion time
distribution for technical and legal checks for mortgages
A
59
proposals
for
improve-
ment
Quick Wins ΙΤ
Require Systemic
Change
Pure process
redesign
Centralization
Number
Time
estimate
Impact
estimate
Of which
6 months 12 months
Summary status
18 • Completed
55 • 18 implemented
• 23 in process
• 14 under
investigation
6 • 2 implemented
• 2 in progress
• 2 in design
4
Small
Medium
Large
Small
• 1 completed
• 3 in process
Summary of defined process improvement initiatives

6. 5D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
SG& A costs (Total G&A, IFRS, Bank, Greece)
Key actions
to cut costs
• Renegotiation of procurement contracts (IT maintenance,
Buildings’ maintenance and cleaning)
• Rents’ renegotiation
• Demand needs optimization and process redesign (post &
telecom, cash management, cash-in-transit)
• Cost cutting (advertising, sponsorships, subscriptions, 3rd party
services)
• Further cuts in
telecom costs
• Cut in postage
expenses
• MPS
implementation
in branches (1st
phase)
• Spatial redesign and
consolidation of centralized
services in own buildings
• Rationalization of energy
consumption
• Redesign of mass printing and
card personalization
• Expansion of MPS to more
branches
20112010 2014E
-15%
2012 2013
A
In parallel substantial cost reduction has already been achieved with the
effort further continuing…
Extra costs from absorption of
FBB and Probank
In addition significant effort put in increasing energy
efficiency via targeted Capex investments with long term
effect, also reducing the Bank’s energy footprint

7. 6D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
Creation of model document
digitization center in the same facilities
in order to:
• Stop physical distribution of files
• Servicing of all document recall
needs via the digitization and
electronic distribution process
…while improving operations through digital doc management and
creation of physical archiving/digitization infrastructure
• State of the art archiving system with special
shelves/decks, very narrow corridors and semi-
automatic collection machines
• Cooperation of the It and archiving infrastructure
at all stages leveraging RF technology
• Minimization of archiving and recovering time
• Realization of practically zero error service level
A
Collection of the physical archive in the ΠΑΕΓΑΕ facilities
• Loan files
• Teller transactions’ documentation
• Customer identification documents
• Central services archive (e.g., Legal, HR)
• Other archive

8. 7D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
2 Banks were seamlessly integrated (in less than 4 months for both
cases)
FBB
(May-June 2013)
Probank (August-
December 2013)
• 70.000
– 23.000 new
customers
– 47.000 common
with NBG
Customers
• 510.000
– 140.000 new
customers
– 370.000 common
with NBG
Loans
• € 0,6 bln.
• 3,5k loan
accounts
• € 2,4 bln.
• 33k loan accounts
Deposits
• € 1,1 bln.
• 70k deposit
accounts
• € 2,4 bln.
• 430k deposit
accounts
Branches
• 19 • 112
Personnel
• 220 employees • 1.100 employees
Σεπ Οκτ Νοε
Operational integration
implementation
Integration design
26/07
Imme-
diate
actions
Mapping of current
status
Overview of integrated banks Timeline of Probank integration
A
Transi-
tion
(7-
8/12)
SpecsDetailed
activity plan
2nd test
(30/11-
01/12)
1st test
(23-
24/11)
Business
decisions
Key mile-
stones

9. 8D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
New regulatory framework posing unique challenges through the period
Key highlights
A
• EU Digicomp “commitments” leading to the need of the creation of new
policies and respective process, IT infrastructure and reporting
• 5 year Restructuring Plan with quarterly monitoring, non-adherence to
which could result in the NBG losing its private character
• 2 Asset Quality Reviews (AQR) with heavy reporting requirements
• SSM in place as of November 2014 effectively, among others, formalizing
AQR reporting and leading to annual repeat

10. 9D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
Pre- and post-capital controls: A radical change of the
Bank’s everyday reality within a month
Extraordinary increase of transactions across all channels… … and a rapid “forced digitization” of all customer base
Branch Network
+ 14%
ATM/PoS
+ 62%
Internet Banking Logons
Internet Banking
+ 52%
+ 36%
B
• Issuance of 500k debit cards (out of 3 million) in 2
months
• Doubled acquiring revenue from 7.5 to 15 €
million/day
• PoS: 100 applications/day vs. 10 per day in a
‘business as usual day’

11. 10D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
Important process and functionality changes were required
immediately, while we had to firefight extraordinary loads
with intuitive (and not so much) adjustments “on the fly”
Abnormal loads…
…leading to adjustments “on the fly”
July-August
Before capital
controlsCall center facts
B
Key immediate requirements
Implementation of capital controls
• Central management of withdrawal
thresholds for cash and ‘plastic’
money
• Monitoring of fund transfers
• Transaction management per
Branch type (standard vs. special
purpose branches)
• Management of new/free
funds/capital
Infrastructure optimization to tackle
increased transaction volumes
• PoS
• ATM
• Internet Banking
• Contact Center
• Call center supported via leveraging ~230 FTEs from Collections
• New application for debit card PINs to be sent via SMS
• PIN activation calls rerouted to external call center
• Rerouting of specific transactions (e.g., internet banking activations) back
to branches
~5,500 ~21,000
~4,100 ~12,000
~3 min ~20-25 min
• 50% of total 1100 daily import/export transactions previously not
recorded (executed online “manually”) doubling the load at central
services/branches with much heavier process (due to approval need)
• ATM refills min twice to three times per day
• Average wait
• Answered calls/day
• Incoming calls/day
• Revert of Trade Finance centralization
• New application for requests & approvals of transactions process
• Created ~150 new reconciliation cashier transactions

12. 11D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
The Road Ahead: From a short-term strain to a mid/long-term
opportunity
Short-term impact Potential Mid/long-term impact
▪ Operational disruption from rapid customer shift
to alternative channels
Financial
sector
▪ Strain on Banks’ liquidity from deposit leakage
and ELA limitation
▪ Collapse of trust/customer confidence in
Banking system
▪ Rise of NPLs in all segments
Positive effect
Negative effect
▪ Potential reduction of operating cost and increase
in transaction fees in case of sustained shift to
alternative channels
▪ Imminent need for further re-capitalization (3rd
in three years)
C
Business
activity
▪ Barriers on trade flows (esp. imports) ▪ Potential increase of transparency and consequent
state contributions from business activity (incl.
payroll, transactions, turnover)
Consumer
behavioral
▪ Potential increase of transparency and consequent
tax evasion prevention via alternative channels
▪ Radical drop in consumption (especially cash
based transactions) mainly towards small
businesses
▪ Shift to direct transaction channels (including
web-banking, plastic money, ATM)

13. 12D. Charalampidis, Group COO, National Bank of Greece
Banking vs. Telecoms:
The similarities…
• Service based
businesses
• Heavy on Retail
• Heavy on
Regulation, posing
similar challenges
and obstacles
• Both requiring
excellence in Ops to
win over the
customer journey
C
Lessons (to be) learned from the telecoms world: Heading towards a
digital era
Banking vs. Telecoms:
…and the differences
• Telecoms (esp. mobile) a much “fresher”
business (e.g., Vodafone Group with 24
years or operations vs. NBG’s 174 years
since founded)
• Telecoms industry assimilating and
spearheading technology and innovation
much faster
• Banking carrying much more legacy (e.g, in
terms of systems) while telecoms having
higher flexibility and executing easier
transformations (e.g. first On-line system in
Greece by NBG fully tailor made)
• Regulatory constraints higher for Banking
The bet ahead for Banking:
Follow telecom’s example of
moving very fast to CRM
• Enabling full and detailed
view of the customer
journey’s across channels
• Understanding the
customer base and its
behavior
• Having a seamless
experience and interface
across channels