Enterprise Risk Management at ABN AMRO

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Themes: -
Period : 2003
Organization : ABN AMRO
Pub Date : 2003
Countries : Global
Industry : Banking

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Case Code : ERMT-023
Case Length : 19 Pages
Price: Rs. 300;

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Introduction

Holland's leading bank, ABN AMRO and its subsidiaries operated more than 800 offices at home and another 2,600 in 75 other countries. In the US, ABN AMRO owned Chicago-based LaSalle Bank and Standard Federal Bank, one of Michigan's largest banks. ABN AMRO also had a large presence in Brazil (through its ownership of Banco Real and Paraiban) and Malaysia (where it had operated for more than 100 years). The bank was expanding its presence in the Philippines, India, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.

ABN AMRO had three major business segments: private clients and asset management, consumer and commercial clients, and wholesale clients. Responding to the economic recession, the bank was trimming staff at home and abroad. It was also closing or reconfiguring about one-third of its 830 domestic branches.

Background Note

ABN AMRO was the product of a 1991 merger between the Netherlands' two largest banks -- Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN) and Amsterdam-Rotterdam Bank (AMRO), respectively. ABN's origin went back to the Netherlands Trading Society, which had been founded in 1824, to finance business ventures in the Dutch colonies, in the East Indies. Although the firm weathered the First World War and the Depression, the Second World War was catastrophic. Germany occupied the homeland and Japan took over the Dutch East Indies. The Netherlands Trading Society never recovered, and in 1964 it merged with Twentsche Bank (founded in 1861 as an agricultural bank) to form Algemene Bank Nederland.

AMRO had been formed by the merger of Amsterdam Bank and Rotterdam Bank in 1964. Founded in 1863, Rotterdam Bank financed commercial activity in the colonies before refocusing on the shipping business through Rotterdam. Amsterdam Bank had been founded in 1871 by several Dutch and German banks and was the largest Dutch bank when it merged with Incasso Bank in 1948. In 1964, the new entity added the operations of Hollandsche Bank - Unie.

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