ABN Amro to cut up to 1000 jobs

Up until 2018 ABN Amro will be scrapping between 650 and 1,000 jobs. The bank wants to further concentrate and improve the branch network by expanding the offerings of each office. ABN Amro announced this today with the figures of the third quarter. It is not yet certain how many offices will disappear. In the fourth quarter the bank will make a provision of between 50 and 75 million euro for the reorganization. ABN Amro will also invest an amount of approximately 150 million euro until 2018 for accelerating the digitization of key customer processes. In the third quarter ABN Amro reported an underlying net profit of 450 million euro, an increase of 56 percent compared to the same period last year. Including the compulsory contribution of 67 million euro to SNS Reaal, the net profit amounted to 383 million euro. That is a charge that the State imposed as a contribution to the cost of the nationalization of SNS Bank in 2012. The bank contributes the increase primarily to the "modest growth" of the Dutch economy and the rising trend in the housing market. ABN Amro also had to make less provision for bad loans in the third quarter, both compared to the same period last year and the previous quarter. CEO Gerrit Zalm is on the whole satisfied with the results of the third quarter, and with the fact that ABN Amro successfully passed the European Central Bank (ECB) stress tests in October. ABN Amro also announced an interim dividend of 125 million euro. "On the recovery of the Dutch economy, we remain cautiously optimistic", says Zalm.