Contents Management report Corporate governance Consolidated financial statements Financial statements Pillar 3
Excellent basic services
The foundation for an excellent customer focus is in the basic
services. Customers need financial solutions and good advice.
Questions need to be dealt with quickly and without delay; all
daily bank business needs to be available online. Customers
want to be able to view their financial situation at all times.
Customers need to get an answer immediately to all their
questions, through the channel of their choice. Alongside this,
excellent customer focus needs our current working practices
and processes to be tightened up. We want to be one step
ahead of the customer. We can only achieve this if we know
what our customers want and if we tie our services to this.
Closer to our customers
Excelling in customer focus means wanting to exceed customer
expectations. By being there for the customer at important
moments, we want to ensure that the customer keeps on
choosing us. The number of physical contacts with customers is
falling. That makes it all the more important that the customer
experience is extra special on the times where we do see our
customers. We are not investing in new locations, but are
ensuring there are new physical points of contact across the
whole country.Think, for example, of house calls or at the
customer's place of work and presence in shops or online.
Financial linking pin for companies
Rabobank looks forward to having a total customer relationship
with each customer. We also recommend solutions that we
do not finance ourselves, but where we can bring supply and
demand together. Think of the possibilities of crowdfunding.
In the interests of the customer we also act as a financial
linking pin and commit ourselves to the recommended
solution. For this, it is essential to explore new forms of services
and brokering.
Loan portfolio shrinks by 3%
The Dutch economy grew by 2% in 2015, with growth in
exports and domestic spending power being the main
contributors. Households' disposable incomes rose, thanks
to an increase in pay under collective agreements and a rise
in employment opportunities. Consumer confidence also
continued to rise. As a result, consumer spending increased
and the housing market recovered as average sales prices rose.
Unemployment fell, but remained relatively high by Dutch
standards at 6.9% in 2015.
Loan portfolio by sector
in billions of euros
350
300
III
31-12 31-12 31-12
2013 2014 2015
Food and agri
US
I Private individuals
Despite the positive economic developments the recovery
in business investments remained modest. In a number of
sectors, the fall during the last few years was so great that even
a relatively large rise in production in 2015 still left the volume
well below that of 2008. Meanwhile, the extra repayments of
mortgages remained high; in 2015 this totalled EUR 3.4 (4.0)
billion at local Rabobanks. Under the influence of this trend, the
loan portfolio for our domestic retail banking business fell by
EUR 8.0 billion to EUR 281.9 (289.9) billion.
Lending to private individuals consists almost entirely
of residential mortgages and fell by EUR 2.8 billion to
EUR 202.7 (205.5) billion. Loans to the trade, industry and
service sectors fell by 9% to EUR 51.1 (56.0) billion and loans to
the food and agri sector fell by 1% to EUR 28.2 (28.4) billion.
Residential mortgages
The housing market
The recovery in the housing market continued at a rapid rate
in the Netherlands. In each province the number of residential
property transactions rose compared to the previous year.
The price index for private homes for sale rose in almost all
provinces. Only in Zeeland and Flevoland did the index fall.
The more urban provinces of North-Holland, South-Holland
and Utrecht showed the sharpest price increases. For 2016 we
expect moderate growth in the number of residential property
transactions and an increase in the price index for current
private homes. This positive development is mainly the result of
high consumer confidence, historically low mortgage rates and
the economic recovery.The problems of remaining debts and
the tightening of lending criteria have applied a limited brake
to this growth.
28 Rabobank Annual Report 2015
