ABN Amro plans retail offensive

ABN Amro has announced it will launch a powerful offensive on the retail market within one and a half years, following better than expected results for the first year in business of its private customer division. “Our consumer banking division did better than expected in its first year and results were better than planned. Based on this success we created a new development plan, which we presented to the management of the group in Amsterdam. I hope it will be approved and then we will start being much more active,” Haris Hanif, general manager of ABN”s consumer banking division, told Ziarul Financiar. He says the bank”s retail offensive will include the opening of new braches and launching of new products and services, as well as implementation of new systems and technologies. “We will invest a great deal of money in this market and things will start to show in 12 to 18 months.” The investment will be spent on launching Internet banking, phone-banking and mobile-banking services, as well as the creation of an ATM network. ZF