Rabobank is bothered by the low interest rates, which means that income is declining. The bank will therefore close about half of its branches. A spokesman for the cooperative bank confirms this on Thursday morning after reporting from the Financieele Dagblad.
The 230 branches that the bank still has at the moment will have to be reduced to 100 to 150. The number of bank branches will be reduced from 89 to 71. The cutbacks are the result of the persistently low interest rates. As a result, income has been declining for years. Due to stimulus measures by the central banks, interest rates will not rise quickly for the time being.
Moreover, the corona crisis has shown that more and more banking matters can be handled online, a spokesman said. “Customer contact is no longer just in bricks. We are where our customers are. That is why we are working on customer contact online and in the library, in shops and at festivals. “The crisis also has a downside: Rabobank’s profit fell by 81 percent in the first half of the year, to EUR 227 million.
The news from Rabobank comes as no surprise. In July, the bank announced that it wanted to permanently close some of the 100 branches that were closed due to the corona measures. Competitor ING also announced last week that it was cutting the organization. In addition to the closure of a quarter of the 170 Dutch branches, the bank is cutting about a thousand jobs and wants to freeze wages. ABN Amro previously announced that it would close its offices outside Europe, resulting in the loss of 800 jobs. In any case, the 105 branches in the Netherlands will remain open this year.
According to the spokesperson, Rabobank is “not immediately” cutting back on the workforce. “The goal is to guide people from work to work. Anyone who helps customers physically now will soon be able to do the same behind the laptop. “The question is whether that process requires the same amount of manpower. Trade union CNV said in a reaction on Thursday morning that it was “very concerned” about what the intervention means for employees. The large-scale reorganization from 2016 is still fresh in their minds.
Elderly
Closing physical locations will be a loss, especially for older customers. Figures that the three major banks provided to De Volkskrant last year showed that 30 percent of the over-66s still arrange banking in a ‘traditional’ way. This is even more than half of the older Rabobank customers.
Rabobank’s customer base is relatively older and less digital. Moreover, as a cooperative, the bank prides itself on a local presence, although this has already decreased significantly in recent years – from over 1,200 branches in 2006 to 335 just before the corona crisis. Rabobank expects to absorb the further loss of physical locations by having mobile advisers come home by appointment.
