New fees for Commercial Banking clients with non-Dutch bank accounts

ABN AMRO CB handles the banking business of commercial clients with up to EUR 250 million in revenue. A small group of around 3,000 CB clients have bank accounts for their non-Dutch businesses or divisions, called ‘non-resident’ accounts.

Rising costs

Those accounts carry costs for ABN AMRO, as a result of the controls required under rules and regulations at the Dutch, international and local levels. This includes the costs of maintaining up-to-date client files and performing anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorist financing checks. Those costs have continued to rise in recent years. Amplifying this, CB’s clients are spread around the world, in over a hundred countries, which makes it expensive to review compliance with local laws and regulations. So far, ABN AMRO has paid those costs almost entirely out of its own pocket. This is now set to change, and effective 1 January part of the cost will be passed on to the client.

Personal interviews to discuss options

ABN AMRO has identified all of its CB clients that will be affected by this new arrangement, and over the past months the bank’s relationship managers have contacted them to discuss possible alternatives. The new fees will be EUR 110 per month for commercial entities based in the European Economic Area (EEA) and EUR 270 per month for commercial entities outside the EEA.