ABN Amro to scrap 2,700 jobs

ABN Amro plans to cut 15 percent of its workforce, or some 2,700 jobs in the coming years, the bank said in an update on its strategy on Monday. The Dutch bank will henceforth focus more of its attention on the Netherlands and Northwestern Europe.

ABN Amro wants to cut costs by 700 million euros to 4.7 billion euros in the coming years. The job cuts should contribute to this. The bank will do its best to limit the consequences for employees as much as possible, for example through natural attrition and by retraining for positions that are needed, ABN Amro said. It is setting about 150 million euros aside for this reorganization. At the end of 2019, ABN Amro employed about 18 thousand people, including 14,800 in the Netherlands.

The bank also said that it was putting more focus on helping its customers become more sustainable and will increase the share of sustainable loans and investments from one fifth to one third by 2024. In the Netherlands, the bank will focus more on wealthy private individuals and medium-sized to large companies. In Northwest Europe, ABN Amro wants to distinguish itself in the field of sustainability and digitization.

"Today we announce we will be a personal bank in the digital age, serving clients where we have scale in the Netherlands and Northwest Europe," ABN Amro CEO Robert Swaak said. 

Swaak previously announced that the bank was planning a change in course and that this could entail job cuts. At the time, about 800 jobs were set to be scrapped. 

ABN Amro also announced that it is selling its head office on on Gustav Mahlerlaan in Amsterdam, with plans to rent part of it back. The office will be put on the market next year. Another ABN Amro office on Foppingastraat in the Dutch capital is being converted into a Paris Climate Agreement-proof "icon of sustainability". That renovation should be done in 2025.