ABN Amro cuts 250 jobs at corporate bank

ABN Amro is taking various measures at its corporate bank, including scrapping 250 jobs. The bank wants to increase this department's profitability, ABN Amro announced at the presentation of its figures for the second quarter, Het Parool reports.

The corporate bank, officially called the Corporate and Institutional Bank (CIB), accounts for 2,600 of ABN Amro's total 19 thousand jobs. CIB is responsible for financing shipping and the energy sector, and for managing acquisitions and IPOs.

In itself, CIB showed solid results, but ABN Amro CEO Kees van Dijhuizen believes that the department does not yield enough returns. To improve profitability, ABN Amro wants CIB to focus less on sectors whose revenues are extremely volatile.

In the second quarter ABN Amro saw its assets decrease to 2.3 billion euros, 8 percent less than a year ago. The operational result dropped by 9 percent to over 1 billion euros. The bank made a net profit of 688 million euros, 28 percent less than the second quarter of 2017.

Van Dijkhuizen called these "solid" results. "Interest income remained strong despite the unfavorable interest rate climate. The provisions were considerably lower than in the previous quarter, but still considerable because certain sectors remain under pressure", he said. It is also important for investors that the capital buffer increased considerably.