ABN Amro Shuts Down More Indian Businesses

Vanessa Doctor

25 February 2010

ABN Amro Bank has announced the imminent shutdown of its personal loan and credit card operations in India, as the bank realigns its focus onto retail deposits, wealth management, and corporate banking, a report by Live Mint reveals.

Employees working under the two departments are being asked to resign, the news service said, citing people close to the matter. The consumer banking team reportedly had around 2850 staff at the start of the fiscal year and at least 500 have left since then.

An unnamed executive at the bank had told the publication that ABN intends to shrink the book size of its consumer finance division from Rs1200 crore to just around Rs190 crore ($40.98 million). The bank's Indian businesses had suffered a 93 per cent drop in earnings in the year to 31 March 2009 due to a slowing economy and has consistently seen profit declines in the past months.

"We continue to maintain our service for existing card and loan customers and remain focused on the branch banking and wealth management businesses in the retail arm of the bank," a spokesperson for the Royal Bank of Scotland was quoted as having said.

RBS had taken over ABN's Indian units in 2007 as part of its global acquisition strategy and has since then been selling off the latter's non-core businesses to raise funds. "RBS is in ongoing discussions for the remaining retail and SME assets it has decided to sell in Asia and we will not be making any further comment at this stage," the spokesperson said.