The Netherlands-headquartered group has added a number of private banking businesses in recent years, particularly in Germany.

ABN AMRO today reported that its fourth-quarter 2025 profit rose 3 per cent year-on-year to €410 million ($488.5 million). For the whole of last year, profit declined 6 per cent to €2.252 billion, the Netherlands-headquartered bank said.

Operating income rose 1 per cent to €2.259 billion; for 2025, it dipped 2 per cent, the bank said in a statement. Operating costs fell 2 per cent in the quarter on a year ago and rose 3 per cent in 2025.

“ABN AMRO delivered another solid performance in the fourth quarter of 2025, reflecting continued progress on our strategic priorities. The period was marked by tangible advances in portfolio management and the optimisation of risk-weighted assets (RWA),” Marguerite Bérard (main picture), CEO, said. “We made further progress on right-sizing our cost base and realising profitable growth, particularly in mortgages and wealth management.”

“We continue to invest in our client franchises. In December, we opened a new branch in Ghent for our wealth management clients after rebranding our Belgian private-banking activities as ABN AMRO MeesPierson. Through Hauck Aufhäuser Digital Custody, we are now able to offer crypto custody and transaction services to institutional clients,” Bérard said. She continued: “Fee income also strengthened, mainly at wealth management, following a successful product campaign and good market performance.”

The CEO said that on the expenses side, the bank expects costs of €5.6 billion, excluding restructuring expenses and the intended acquisition of NIBC. (In November last year, ABN AMRO announced that it had agreed to buy another Netherlands-based firm, NIBC Bank, from US-listed private markets group Blackstone. ABN AMRO said it expected to pay €960 million for the business.)

“In our year-end capital assessment, we included the expected impact of closing the NIBC acquisition in 2026. We plan to distribute an additional €500 million, consisting of €250 million in cash dividends and €250 million through a share buyback programme, for which we have submitted an application for regulatory approval,” Bérard continued. “This distribution is on top of our proposed final dividend of €0.70 per share, which together with our interim dividend corresponds to 50 per cent of the full-year net profit. In total, these distributions represent a payout of 87 per cent of the net profit.”

The bank’s Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio, which finished 2025 at 15.4 per cent, already considers the additional distributions.

In May 2024, the bank built out its northwest European wealth management and corporate banking services by buying Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe. ABN AMRO acquired the business from China-based Fosun for €672 million. It already operates a German private banking business, Bethmann, headquartered in Frankfurt.

Shares in the bank were down about 1.3 per cent around 12 noon in Amsterdam trade today.