An estimated 500 million smallholder farmers across the globe struggle to make ends meet. ABN AMRO has made 50 million euros available for microcredit facilities. “It takes just a few hundred euros to help these farmers escape poverty,” colleague Emilie says.
With criminals employing ever heavier explosives to raid cashpoints, Dutch banks, ATM operator Geldmaat, government authorities and the police are taking new measures to stop them.
A growing number of companies are joining the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) – 57 financial institutions from all over the world are now partners, representing 3.5 trillion US dollars in total assets. ABN AMRO is one of the founders of PCAF and a member of the international steering committee.
With effect from 1 January 2020, ABN AMRO will modify the terms & conditions for revolving credits (Flexibel Krediet) taken out before mid-February 2019. Under the existing terms, clients are free to withdraw, pay back, and withdraw again any number of times up to the credit limit agreed. Under the new terms, clients can withdraw funds for two years at most, after which they must start paying back the loan. These terms already applied for clients who requested a new line of revolving credit after mid-February 2019.
There’s something fishy about many products in our shops because human rights are violated during production. A non-living wage and child labour are but two examples. We want to help combat such practices by carefully selecting the parties we do business with and by helping companies improve.
ABN AMRO has temporarily shut down 470 cash dispensers with immediate effect. This emergency measure is needed in view of the growing number of violent ATM explosive attacks. All cash has been removed from the machines.
As from 9 December, clients will no longer be able to request a new line of revolving credit from ABN AMRO. The bank has taken this decision due to declining demand. In addition, an increasing number of clients want to pay back their loans.
ABN AMRO has added SwatchPAY! to its range of wearable products, with six new wearable models now available.
The holidays are just around the corner, traditionally a time when we consume more. Can you resist the temptation of the holiday sales? More and more people are aware of the impact of their buying behaviour and are willing to become conscious consumers.
ABN AMRO is discontinuing its Wallet app for Android smartphones, as too few clients use the option to make payments with an Android smartphone.
ABN AMRO is at the top of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Transparency Benchmark 2019. With a fourth place, ABN AMRO is, similar to 2017, one of the leading groups of most transparent organizations in the field of social reporting in the Netherlands and we once again won the prize for the greatest innovation in reporting for our Impact Report.
Interest rates on savings in Europe are historically low. One of the reasons for these low rates is that banks in the eurozone park their excess cash with the European Central Bank (ECB) and that the ECB charges a negative interest rate on these deposits (currently -0.5%). The ECB is also keeping market interest rates low, providing banks with inexpensive loans and it has an extensive bond buying programme. Together, these factors have been pushing savings rates (and mortgage rates) down for some time now.
A world without waste in which we use and re-use stuff and resources as long as we can – it’s the key to a sustainable future. And it calls for a dramatically different approach by manufacturers and consumers, and a change in the way banks look at finance requests.
On 29 October, ABN AMRO won the Computable Award in the category ICT Project of the Year 2019 for Large Businesses. Computable announced 21 winners, with the bank’s initiative for tracking down human trafficking receiving the highest average final score.
On 1 November 2019, ABN AMRO will cut interest rates on savings accounts and inform clients about this. Rates on its freely accessible Direct Savings Account (Direct Sparen) will go down to 0.01% from 0.02%.
