"Statisfied customers, driven professionals" Ralph van Put

A strong relationship and mutual understanding

Bas Cohen and Ralph van Put - Trading Lab of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

Ralph van Put has for many years been a true pioneer in the global equity derivatives business, having managed Saen Options and All Options as CEO. Through a global reach, Ralph has experienced many different developments in the world of market making, from trading pits to digitized trading screens, from New York and Amsterdam to Hong Kong. As a long standing client of ABN AMRO, we have developed a strong relationship with Ralph, characterized by mutual understanding, fun and openness.

As a well respected person within and outside his business scope, Ralphs friendliness and openness have made us chose to sponsor a new career path that Ralph decided to take: Financial Education, with a focus on trading financial markets.

As an adjunct professor of Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, as well as a member of the Faculty of Business Administration of National University of Taiwan, and as part of Advisory Committee of the Centre for Financial Education Singapore, Ralph has set up virtual trading labs for students to train and simulate market making and arbitrage strategies. The goal is two fold: allow talents from the region to get trained and help build further the efficiency of financial markets, while at the same time keeping the specialised skill set needed for true market trading up to speed with market developments.

At ABN AMRO, we very much support development of skills, from an internal but also external society point of view. With Ralphs initiative to set up virtual trading labs, we feel proud of being able to sponsor this project and play a role in further educating talents in a business that has become our passion.

A virtual trading room with 40 workstations at the university allow students to trade real time across the globe through the trading lab. More trading labs are being planned for in different locations.

As said before, these types of initiatives fit our view on how to participate in society. Even though no hard cash is being earned with this initiative, the soft cash, the relationship and mutual respect has given us a lot of energy.

I do believe that we should continue to look beyond the pure business relationship with a client, and look for additional value as portrayed above. That brings us closer with clients, shows our commitment to society, and will at the end solidify our reputation as the Bank Anno Nu, in this case proud, involved and professional.

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2011 - Bas Cohen, Managing Director, Head Markets Trading

Gustav Mahlerlaan 10,1082 PP Amsterdam, The Netherlands