Strange action by ABN Amro | The columns

The bank relies on a survey by the European Central Bank which has made a cautious judgment on the deplorable relationship between the bank's administrators and its supervising administrators. The chairman of the supervisory board had to clear the pitch at the beginning of the year and three new supervisors are now following.

The four supervisors were not good enough? Or could the top of the bank have looked too closely under his fingers at the critical supervisors? If the bad relationship was due to the commissioners or administrators, then I wonder.

"It's the bank that's doing good things"

The ABN Amro summit is washing its hands innocently and saying I've been looking for some time for better-informed supervisory directors banking sector. Of course. Experienced bankers as easy-to-manage supervisors: no hard questions, and they understand better than anyone that bankers 'and bank employees' salaries far outweigh their capabilities and that the banking profession is aligned with the rules behind which you can hide comfortably, without astonishing the rules are justified and always adapted to society.

It seems to me that ABN Amro should like the members of the supervisory board who are not immersed in the banking profession and who, in addition to supervising, can also challenge, advise and constitute the social antenna they need so much.

But no, the bank only wants supervisory directors with experience in the banking sector

The previous difficult chairman of the Supervisory Board has since been replaced by Tom de Swaan. Nice and comfortable because De Swaan served on the board of ABN Amro until his retirement. He will not ask questions quickly and will not ask difficult questions because he grew up in the culture of the bank. My biggest specter is a culture like Goldman Sachs Bank. I still get goose bumps when I think of the statements of Lloyd Blankfein, the top manager of this bank. Goldman Sachs played a very bad role in the banking crisis in 2007, as they speculated on products that they themselves had sold to their customers.

Blankfein then stated that his bank had a "social purpose" and did not blush. he admits that as a banker, he did the "work of God". You have to go far enough to think that as a banker you are doing the work of God. As for culture, we do not want to take the example of a bank such as Goldman Sachs.

The two commissioners newly hired by ABN Amro do not promise much good in this context. The first is an old woman from a large Scandinavian bank who has worked for years at (yes) Goldman Sachs. The second commissioner is also someone who has worked all his life in the banks and recently, during the crisis years, he was a partner at (drumroll!) Goldman Sachs for ten years.

Promises Kees van Dijkhuizen, president of ABN Amro. that it will improve culture and transparency at the top. I do not know if the supervisory directors with professional experience at Goldman Sachs will convince me of that.

I do not know any of the former or current supervisory directors, but what I do know is that a well-adapted social antenna is currently more important than a thorough knowledge. of the banking profession. It's not about the bank doing things right, it's about what it does.

The banks are too much in their ivory tower and claim they will not escape to any other area. A small example: a landlord still has a small mortgage loan of € 25,000 for a house worth over € 400,000. He wants his wife to be half owner of the house, but the bank asks him to sign as debtor the mortgage deed. Idiosizing because the bank has a loan that accounts for a few percent of the guarantee, so why add an additional debtor? But the most shocking thing is that they charge two thousand euros for this absurd action. Banks have also calculated too much penalty interest for years when they have to repay or repay their mortgage.

Will the ABN Amro not continue? Of course, it is important to have banking experience within the supervisory board, but not at all with all supervisors. You will not find the trust of society. Why not half of the supervisory directors with banking expertise and the other half, commissioners who are both in the company and are capturing the right signals. Commissioners with experience in other sectors can translate into the banking sector. Who not only looks at the profits satisfactorily, but realizes that ABN Amro is not only for the shareholders, but also for its customers and for the long term.