J/Vhat's NewS The Netherlands Rabobank - 100 YEARS LATER Supplement for What's NewS February 1997 LEEUWARDEN GRONINGEN Statistics are useful and informative and provide an indication of strength or weakness. It is gratifying to know that in Holland, Rabobank is market leader, for example, in the home mortgage sector and provides more than 90 percent of finance to the country's F&A industry. However, the numbers which confirm Rabobank's strength in the domestic market do not even hint at the bank's roots, its past achievements or its role in local communities throughout the Netherlands. AMSTERDAM UTRECHT - ERMELO - PUTTEN ROTTERDAM MAASTRICHT One of our local Rabobanks. We may be celebrating a century next year, but in fact 1998 has been selected as a kind of mean. Some local banks are much older, others somewhat younger. But whatever their age all were established based on the same need and philosophy. Anyone who has seen Vincent van Gogh's early drawings of 19th-century Dutch farmers scratching a living from the soil and who also knows that today the Netherlands is the third largest F&A exporter after the US and France would be forgiven for wondering how that dramatic change came about. Part of the answer is Rabobank. SELF-HELP In the mid-19th century much of Dutch farm land was owned by absentee landlords whose main interest was squeezing their tenants. This took two forms - high rents and access to finance only at exhorbitant interest rates. It was not only small farmers in Holland, but those elsewhere in Europe who seemed doomed to eternal toil solely for their landlords benefit. The hero in this true tale is a German called Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. He came up with a kind of 'self-help' plan for local farming communities. The basic Raiffeisen concept was beautiful in its simplicity. The farmers joined together and became members of a cooperative bank. Each member guaranteed a specific amount of money in case the bank got into difficulties. The deposits, however small, were then used to advance loans to members who needed them at reasonable interest rates. These cooperative banks were often located in someone's living room, with the funds secured in a safe in the private home. CENTRAL MOVE Although this distant past may seem rather primitive in these times of exotic deritatives, global Communications and so on, the cooperative movement met an essential need (as many emerging markets are currently discovering to their benefit). The idea took off in Germany and rapidly moved to neighbouring countries, including Holland. Farmers' cooperatives sprang up throughout the primarily agricultural Netherlands and a need was soon feit for a central organization which could capitalize on the excess revenues held by the member banks. The insight into political, social, geographic and religious history of the Netherlands needed to p COÖPERATIEVE WORTELS Voor veel nieuwe medewerkers en onze collega's in het buitenland zijn de coöperatieve structuur van onze bank en de besluitvormingsprocessen vaak onduidelijk. Reden om in deze special aandacht te besteden aan onze historie, de ontwikkelingen die leidden tot de bank die wij nu zijn, onze structuur en een impressie van een locale bank.Onze bank heeft in de ontwikkeling van de agrarische gemeenschap een grote rol gespeeld. De coöperatie, opgezet om elkaar te helpen, is de reden dat wij nu nog steeds sterk betrokken zijn in de locale gemeenschappen.

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'What's news' (EN) | 1997 | | pagina 7