ANPBoard Chairman Stefaan Decraene of Rabobank.
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 19:05
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Eva Wiessing
economics reporter
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Ruben Eg
economics editor
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Eva Wiessing
economics reporter
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Ruben Eg
economics editor
Rabobank is celebrating its anniversary in style. Last year the corporate bank existed for 125 years and today the figures showed that the profit of 4.37 billion euros for that festive year is a record for Rabo.
Competitor ING also presented the highest profit ever a week ago. Last year, 7.3 billion euros remained at the bottom of the line.
At a time when the economy is in recession, the Netherlands has no cabinet and the geopolitical situation in the world is under high tension, the major Dutch banks seem healthier than ever. This is mainly due to the interest rate. Due to the record interest rate of 4 percent at the European Central Bank (ECB), banks made money quite easily last year on the difference between the interest they collect on loans and pay out on savings interest.
Gifts for customers
Yet this morning the champagne was not uncorked at Rabobank’s head office in Utrecht because of the mega profit. “I would say: a nice profit,” CEO Stefaan Decraene downplayed the result somewhat. The Flemish CEO beamed: “The highest profit in Rabobank’s 125-year existence. This allows us to give something back to society.”
Decraene referred to a pot of 400 million euros that Rabobank has filled for consumers, entrepreneurs and staff with plans to become more sustainable. “That is really a gift,” he says about the “gigantic amount”. “For example, we contribute 1,000 euros to every customer who takes out a mortgage and wants to make their home more sustainable.”
ING’s profit was also the highest profit ever, or at least the highest profit since the insurance division NN was split from the financial group ten years ago. At ING, CEO Steven van Rijswijk was very clear about the question of whether the 7.3 billion euros could be called a record profit: “Absolutely.”
Gifts for customers are not handed out at ING. Only shareholders, with 6.4 billion euros, will have to distribute considerably more than normal. According to Van Rijswijk, the record profits will not last. “We notice that interest rates are becoming more stable and may drop again during the first half of this year. This also means that the bank’s profitability is normalizing.”
Rabobank also expects this. “People see a profit worth billions, but we do have a balance sheet of 600 billion euros,” said financial director Bas Brouwers. “We are now taking out long-term loans with lower margins. So we have to be realistic, these profits are not permanent.”
Bank tax
There was a lot of fuss halfway through this year when banks published remarkably high half-yearly profits. The fact that consumers only received a small percentage of savings interest was wrong. The House of Representatives then treated the major banks to an additional bank tax of 350 million euros.
With 1.5 percent at ING and 1.7 percent at Rabobank, the biggest criticism of the low savings interest rate has now subsided somewhat. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) is still investigating whether there is sufficient competition in the Dutch savings market.
“It’s great that an independent party is investigating this,” Van Rijswijk responds. His colleague Decraene from Rabobank believes that there is plenty of choice for savers. “We are always the first to raise the interest rate of all the major banks, to now 1.7 percent. And we have introduced a new savings product, where you get 2.4 percent if you lock up your savings for 90 days. Other banks don’t have that.”
Of the four major banks, De Volksbank, the parent group of SNS, ASN, RegioBank and BLG Wonen, will present the figures for 2023 tomorrow. ABN Amro will open its books next Wednesday. De Volksbank is still fully state-owned, and high profits are mainly good news for the treasury. At ABN Amro, the Dutch government is currently reducing the state interest to 40 percent. This means that a large part of the profit distribution still goes to The Hague.
2024-02-08 18:05:44
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