Published by Huddleston Jones – Wednesday 31st August 2016
According to reports published by Asian Private Banker [Link], “ABN AMRO Private Banking has made further staff cuts in Asia, including to its Singapore-based international clients team. However, Hans Hanegraaf, country executive ABN AMRO Singapore and head of private banking Asia & Middle East, tells Asian Private Banker that the changes are an inevitable outcome of difficult market conditions and strategic refinement, and that the bank is now focusing on its core strengths in the region.“
It has been reported in the DutchNews.nl [Link] that ‘Hundreds of jobs’ would be slashed in a Global cost cutting drive, quoting “Several hundred bank workers are likely to lose their jobs after ABN Amro announced a fresh round of redundancies. Finance director Kees van Dijkhuizen did not rule out compulsory job losses as he told the NOS Radio 1 Journaal that the bank was looking to make €200 million of savings. The organisation is expected to announce in the next few weeks exactly how many people it plans to lay off as it tries to bring down its costs-to-income ratio from 61.8% to between 56% and 60%. ‘We have looked at other banks’ costs and examined ourselves in a critical light,’ said chairman of the board Gerrit Zalm, who has held the post since the bank was nationalised in 2008.”
In a report released by WealthBriefing Asia [Link], it confirmed ABN Amro remained committed to it’s Asian business, despite continued job cuts in the region. Han’s Hanegraaf, Asia Pacific CEO stated, “The private banking business landscape has been challenging over the last 15 months with income and revenues impacted over this long drawn period of uncertainty and increased regulatory costs”. Hanagraaf added “We are no different [to other private banking institutions] and we have had to take stock and thus recently conducted a performance and business review in line with our aim to remain sustainably profitable and to continue to fund future growth and our ongoing investment in the right talent. This has resulted in us having to part ways with some staff post business and performance review. We recently have and will continue to invest in the right talent and fit for our focus business segments in Greater China and we remain committed to our clients and business in Asia.”
ABN AMRO’s client assets under management in Asia has declined marginally since the beginning of 2016 from €15.94 billion ($17.9 billion) to €15.42 billion as at the end of June, its share of the bank’s global asset pool has actually risen from 8 per cent to 8.34 per cent. The bank’s total assets under management dipped 3 per cent to €192.8 billion during this period.
