ABN Amro, ING in top three of best performing European banks

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Based on return on equity (ROE), ABN Amro and ING are second and third on the list of the best performing banks in Europe, the Financieele Dagblad reported on Friday.

With a low ROE, a bank is in trouble, analysts and big investors claim. And usually the bank is inefficient, has high loan losses, is in the wrong markets or a combination of all three, the FD said.

In 2016, only a handful of large European banks had a ROE of more than 10%. Both ABN Amro and ING have a ROE of around 12% and the best performer in Europe isĀ  Belgium’s KBC at 18%.

ING has been high on the list for some time, while ABN Amro is a newcomer largely because of its merger with Fortis Nederland in 2010, the FD pointed out.

ABN Amro had a large mortgage portfolio and many clients from the Dutch small business sector, while Fortis was a private bank for rich clients and had some international business exposure. As a result, ABN Amro developed in parallel with the Dutch economy, much more so than ING which is active in more markets, the FD said.

Rabobank, with a ROE of 5.8% is the odd bank out in the Netherlands. In the first place, Rabo is a cooperative bank with no shareholders’equity, the FD points out. In addition, Rabo is in the midst of a large restructuring, and is cutting some 12,000 jobs.

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