State-owned ABN Amro bank is taking over parts of Royal Bank of Scotland’s Dutch corporate banking activities for free, the Financieele Dagblad reported on Thursday.

Some 70 people work at the merger and acquisition and brokerage activities which will return to Dutch hands without money changing hands. RBS said in January it was to divest its Dutch securities and M&A activities as part of a shake-up of its global operations
‘We are mainly taking over people, those who went to RBS Nederland a few years ago,’ a bank spokesman told website nu.nl. The FD said the senior RBS staff will face salary cuts while others will fall under the ABN Amro pay agreements.
Advice
ABN Amro board member Joop Wijn told the paper: ‘Business clients need a broad range of advice on all sorts of forms of finance. We can now offer that without building it up ourselves.’
ABN Amro was taken over by a consortium led by RBS in 2007. The Dutch operations, together with Dutch parts of Fortis, were privatised in 2008 in the wake of the banking crisis. RBS is also largely in the hands of the British government.