Dutch number two Rabobank said on Thursday it planned to slash some 5,000 jobs over the next five years, partly blamed on the impact of the coronavirus crisis.
Releasing its 2020 results, the Utrecht-based cooperative bank said “COVID-19 significantly affected the financial performance of Rabobank”. Net profit fell by half from €2.2 billion in 2019 to €1.1bn, it said in a statement.
Bank top executive Wiebe Draijer however also blamed dipping figures on lower interest rates, a tightening of legislation and digitalisation in the banking sector.
Speaking of a “difficult environment”, Draijer said that “ongoing improvements... (are) expected to result in an average annual reduction of our workforce by 1,000 (employees) over the next five years.”
“We will downsize our traditional branch network in the Netherlands in the coming years,” he added.
Rabobank has been cutting jobs over the last decade. Five years ago it said it would slash up to nearly a fifth of its workforce.
This year however “COVID-19 was and is the most significant health crisis of our generation,” Draijer said. “Its effects on our customers, our employees and societies at large have been dramatic,” he said.
But Rabobank said it would also build more jobs and mitigate job losses by reorganising staff into different functions within the company. For instance, more workers were needed in the bank’s section dealing with the prevention of money laundering and other criminal activities.
More workers were needed in the bank’s section dealing with the prevention of money laundering and other criminal activities
The Dutch Central Bank ordered Rabobank in 2018 to beef up anti-money laundering measures and last year forced it to pay a non-compliance penalty of €500,000.
Rabobank said improvement to its systems to prevent it from being abused in future money laundering, fraudulent or terror-financing transactions “had its utmost attention”.
Looking forward, Draijer said “further adaptation to the changes following the COVID-19 developments will be needed”.
Rabobank employs some 40,000 people across the globe and is the second-largest Dutch bank after ING.