The wind-down of the bank formerly known as ACC Bank continues, with latest figures from the bank's owner showing that the bank cut its loan portfolio by €100 million in the year to end-2016.
Acquired by Dutch bank Rabobank in 2007, ACC Loan Management, the former State-owned financial institution which specialised in lending to the agri sector, cut its loan portfolio to €1.3 billion as of end-year 2016, down from €1.4 billion in the previous year, and from €2 billion in 2014, according to figures just published in the Dutch bank's annual report. The loan book is almost two-thirds commercial with the balance residential.
Rabobank announced the bank’s exit from the Irish retail banking market in late 2013, shutting the bank’s branches, and the bank has been in wind-down mode since. In March 2016, Capita Asset Services took over the day-to-day management of all ACC Loan Management customer accounts and loan facilities, and staff also moved from ACC to Capita Asset Services.
As noted in the report, this “successful” outsourcing led to a reduction in employees in the business. The group employed 435 people in Ireland in 2015, but this had fallen to 319 by end-2016.
Rabobank in Ireland
Rabobank, which also operates a wholesale international bank in Ireland, Rabobank Dublin, as well as a consumer bank, Rabodirect, has also been in retrenchment mode in Ireland. Last year it returned its local banking licence to the Central Bank of Ireland, as part of the bank’s global initiatives to reduce costs.
The bank has also cut services at its Rabodirect arm, which is understood to have about 90,000 Irish customers. In November, the bank announced it would axe its range of investment funds from April of this year.
Savings at Rabodirect, which is active in Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Australia and New Zealand rose to €31.1 billion in 2016, up from €30.5 billion previously, figures in the annual report show. The number of savers rose from 900,000 to 923,000. In Ireland, Rabodirect had deposits of about €6 billion.
