number of valued employees last year, many of whom had made a meaningful contribution to
our bank's development over a long period. We have also made good progress internationally
within Wholesale, Rural Retail. We have formulated our vision on the global food issue under
the name Banking for Food.The world population currently stands at seven billion and large
numbers of these people do not have enough to eat and drink every day. The number of
people living on our planet is set to reach more than nine billion by 2050. Rabobank expressly
wants to contribute towards the solution to this issue. These efforts combined to ensure that
customer focus once again featured prominently on the agenda in 2014 and it will continue to
do so in the years ahead.
The second directional theme is Rabobank as rock-solid bank. We are working on bringing
about operational improvements for our customers and following the events of 2013 continue
to place priority on internal control, integrity, compliance and risk management. With a view to
the increasingly stringent capital requirements in the future, we are looking for ways to lighten
our balance sheet without this coming at the expense of our customer service. We will scrutinise
even more closely the profitability of our activities for the long term.
The third directional theme is the strength of a meaningful cooperative. We are exploring
possibilities for adapting our structure and the governance of our cooperative organisation.
The related objective is to strengthen both our cooperative and our banking business.
The decision-making on adapting our governance is expected to take place in the course of
2015. As a socially responsible organisation Rabobank will play an express role in and contribute
to the economic and social agenda for the Netherlands. We are setting out our contribution to
sustainable development from now to 2020 under the name 'Sustainably Successful Together'.
The related aim is to link our financial services, knowledge and networks in the field of
sustainability with our customers' ambitions. Our worldwide focus in this area is on accelerating
the development of sustainable agriculture and a sustainable food supply and strengthening
the vitality of communities.
The fourth theme focuses on empowering our employees: after all, they make the bank. We got
off to a flying start in 2014 with respect to bringing about our culture change. We are actively
implementing the Culture Collective programme throughout the entire organisation. Our aim is
to achieve even greater customer focus, transparency and entrepreneurship. Leaders from nearly
all divisions of the bank participated in Culture Collective in 2014. We are actively continuing
this programme in 2015. Parallel to this, we are working on a renewed approach to talent and
leadership development, again with the aim of shaping one Rabobank.
2014 results
The Dutch economy recovered cautiously in 2014. We achieved net profit of EUR 1,842 million
in 2014, but the underlying profit rose sharply compared to 2013. Our efficiency ratio stood at
63%. We further strengthened our capital position, which is important for our reputation as a
sound bank. Our common equity tier 1 ratio amounted to 13.6% at the end of 2014 and our
capital ratio stood at 21.3%. Rabobank consequently passed the stress test of the European
Central Bank with good results in October 2014. The European Central Bank took over the
prudential supervision from De Nederlandsche Bank on 4 November 2014. We maintain a healthy
capital buffer even under the worst case scenarios. We will strengthen our buffers further in the
years ahead in line with higher capital requirements. This will require us to look for solutions in
order to enable us to continue to meet the credit demand from our core customers. The return
on tier 1 capital at 5.2% remained far below the long-term target of 8%.
2 Annual Report 2014 Rabobank Group