Holland’s Rabobank and six other European cooperative banks are to work together by agreeing to lend each other cash outside the government-agreed €200bn scheme, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Thursday.

The seven banks, which also include France’s Crédit Agricole and Germany’s DZ bank, have agreed to lend each other €10bn to €15bn in short-term credit.
Rabobank’s CEO Bert Heemskerk said he hoped the agreement would be a good example to the rest of the European banking sector.
Last week, the cooperative bank said it would not be part of the rescue scheme for Icesave’s 120,000 Dutch customers.
‘At the moment we are not willing to pay the bill for this Icelandic debacle,’ Heemskerk, who has strongly criticised Icesave’s high interest rates, was reported as saying.
The Dutch national deposit guarantee scheme means that all healthy banks must club together to pay when a bank collapses.