The Leaseplan internet bank announced on Thursday it will not be accepting anymore customers from next week. The bank says it has nearly reached the goal it set for savings in 2010.

The bank, which is part of car lease firm Leaseplan, launched in February 2010 and has since attracted 50,000 customers and over €1 bn in savings. At the launch, the bank said it was aiming to attract between €1.5 bn and €2 bn within three years.
‘The amount in savings mustn’t get too big too quickly because we want a balance in our funding,’ a spokesman told NRC.
Savings are used to finance the company’s core activity of lease contracts. If the amount of money in the fund gets too large, the bank will have to invest it elsewhere, something it does not want to do.
The bank is popular because it is transparent about its interest rate (Euribor plus a fixed annual rate of 2.1%) which is higher than the competition.
There is room for about another thousand savers and then the bank is closed, probably for a number of months. Existing savers can continue adding to their accounts.