ABN Amro said on Wednesday that corporate banking remained a core activity despite the news it is cutting job numbers by 10%, or 250, in the Corporate and Institutional (CIB) unit.

The CIB reorganisation will cost ABN Amro a one-off €50m but will deliver annual savings of €80m the Financieele Dagblad reported. The job cuts were not as large as some observers feared.

ABN Amro is also to reduce its lending to what was once its trademark Trade and Commodity Finance unit. The bank said it would not be as active as before in international and heavily cyclical sectors.

The partly state-owned bank reported second quarter 2018 net earnings 28% lower at €688m compared to the 2017 period. The bank said provisions for bad loans were higher than in the year-earlier period but it sees improvement in the second quarter.

ABN Amro will pay an unchanged €0.65 per share dividend representing 50% of profits. The bank can well afford to, at end-June the core equity tier-1 ratio stood at a relatively high 18.3%.