ABN AMRO has lost its entrepreneurship

[jrineakter]

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Column – This morning, in the mail, there was a letter from our house banker, ABN AMRO. Nothing but good things to say about the bank. Friendly, competent people and a cheerful chairman. But their letter did give me pause for thought. It was about a change in the general terms and conditions. The legal document was, for my convenience, accompanied by a readable summary.

I quote:

As of October 1, 2016, the terms and conditions state that we can charge you negative interest on (part of) the money in your business payment account(s).

Huh? If I understand correctly, I have to pay money to make it available to the bank? In my world, it was always the case that I gave money to the bank at a modest interest rate and the bank gave it back at a higher percentage to people who needed a loan. From the margin, the cheerful CEO got his bonus, maybe a football club was sponsored and the staff was paid.

bank letter

Capital injections
But apparently things are different afghanistan telegram number list these days. A small entrepreneur can no longer get credit from the bank and because of the enormous capital injections from the ECB, money is sloshing against the baseboards at my bank. Oh yes, and my bank also had to go public last year? To raise even more money that they do nothing with?

Hmm.. So what would I do if I was standing behind the pinball machine of the ever-smiling CEO (he apparently has one in his boardroom)?

Wealthy merchants
At the end of the 16th century, there were a few wealthy merchants who invested money in a few wooden ships to sail them to the other side of the world to 'the East'. These merchants apparently also had money sloshing around, but these men went into business and not into bookkeeping. The first voyage was indeed disastrous (only a third of the crew returned), but after that things went reasonably well for 200 years, despite all the abuses that also arose at that time.

Now the still laughing CEO will soon retire and we should not expect anything more from him, but perhaps his successor will read this: innovation and added value is the answer and not charging negative interest. In fact: so much money should be needed that the bank will give me 10 percent interest on my checking account.

Investments in new concepts or startups
I am not talking about the bank's own innovations (iDeal, online banking, cash dispensers and the like), because they do that mainly to save costs. But I am talking about investing in new concepts or startups.

In fact, so much money would be needed that the bank would give me 10 percent interest on my checking account.

There are many opportunities and initiatives in the market. We are on the eve of a huge 'disruption' of the economic landscape, there is an endless stream of startups and (international) initiatives and what did De Bank do last year? Start an innovation fund with 10 million euros in the pot. That is probably only a fraction of the value of the bank's art collection! ABN AMRO has 16,000 art objects, and the offices to hang them in have long since disappeared. The merchants who stood at the beginning of the VOC would probably have laughed out loud.