The Nederlandsch-Indische Escompto Maatschappij (NIEM, ) was a significant Dutch bank, founded in 1857 in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. In the first half of the 20th century, it was the smallest of the “big three” commercial banks, behind the Netherlands Trading Society and the Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank, that dominated the Dutch East Indies’ financial system alongside the note-issuing Bank of Java. In 1949, following Indonesian independence, its name was changed to Escomptobank. Its main operations in Indonesia were nationalized in 1958, and later integrated into Bank Mandiri. Its residual Dutch operations went through multiple restructurings and mergers, and count among the many predecessor entities of ABN AMRO.

Creation and development in the Dutch East Indies

The NIEM was founded in 1857 by Paulus Tiedeman Jr. and , initially as a subsidiary of their Tiedeman & van Kerchem partnership. It was only the second private financial institution (after the Bank of Java, established in 1828) from which merchants and traders in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

could receive credit, as the Netherlands Trading Society had not yet become a bank by then. It engaged into no activities other than commercial banking, providing credit to trade and industry, and unlike other local players, did not extend long-term agricultural loans. For that reason, the agricultural crisis of 1884 hardly affected the NIEM. The NIEM remained small until 1888, then started to grow rapidly. In late 1901, the NIEM's shareholders decided to move away from the original partnership model. Jan Dinger left the partnership, in which he had joined Tiedeman and van Kerchem, and formed the NIEM's first management board together with Ede Abraham Zeilinga. In addition to its Batavia head office, the NIEM opened branches from the early 20th century in

Bandung Bandung ( su, ᮘᮔ᮪ᮓᮥᮀ, Bandung, ; ) is the capital city of the Indonesian province of West Java. It has a population of 2,452,943 within its city limits according to the official estimates as at mid 2021, making it the fourth most ...

, Buitenzorg (now

Bogor Bogor ( su, , nl, Buitenzorg) is a city in the West Java province, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide.Cirebon, Yogyakarta,

Makassar Makassar (, mak, ᨆᨀᨔᨑ, Mangkasara’, ) is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Med ...

Magelang Magelang () is one of six cities in Central Java that are administratively independent of the regencies in which they lie geographically. Each of these cities is governed by a mayor rather than a ''bupati''. Magelang city covers an area of 18. ...

Malang Malang (; ) is a landlocked List of regencies and cities of Indonesia, city in the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of East Java. It has a history dating back to the age of Singhasari, Singhasari Kingdom. It is the second most popul ...

, Medan, Manado, Padang,

Palembang Palembang () is the capital city of the Indonesian province of South Sumatra. The city proper covers on both banks of the Musi River on the eastern lowland of southern Sumatra. It had a population of 1,668,848 at the 2020 Census. Palembang ...

Semarang Semarang ( jv, ꦏꦸꦛꦯꦼꦩꦫꦁ , Pegon: سماراڠ) is the capital and largest city of Central Java province in Indonesia. It was a major port during the Dutch colonial era, and is still an important regional center and port today. ...

, Sibolga,

Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Indonesia, Indonesian province of East Java and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. L ...

, and

Weltevreden Weltevreden may refer to: * Sawah Besar, a subdistrict of Central Jakarta, Indonesia, the core of the larger colonial district of Weltevreden in Batavia, Java *Weltevreden, Java, a district in the Dutch East Indies, consisting parts of the modern-d ...

(now Sawah Besar,

Central Jakarta Central Jakarta ( id, Jakarta Pusat) is one of the five administrative cities () which form the Special Capital Region of Jakarta. It had 902,973 inhabitants according to the 2010 censusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. and 1,056,896 at the 2 ...

). It also opened branches in Amsterdam in 1910, at 575 Keizersgracht (which it kept until 1960), and in The Hague. In 1912 the NIEM created a securities affiliate, the , which it fully took over in 1921. The bank was severely affected by the financial crisis in 1931. Under the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies during World War II, the occupation authorities first closed all Dutch and other Western banks in March 1942, starting with the Bank of Java, and sequestered them to seize as much as possible of their assets. Among the three largest commercial banks, the Japanese authorities determined that the Netherlands Trading Society had assets of more than 280 million

Dutch guilder The guilder ( nl, gulden, ) or florin was the currency of the Netherlands from the 15th century until 2002, when it was replaced by the euro. The Dutch name ''gulden'' was a Middle Dutch adjective meaning "golden", and reflects the fact that, wh ...

s, the Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank had 158 million, and the NIEM had 99 million. Of these, the Japanese occupiers were able to seize 27 million guilders in total. The banks could only reopen after the

surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...

in the late summer of 1945.

Indonesian independence and aftermath

In 1949, the NIEM changed its name to Escomptobank, but remained headquartered in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

. In 1958, however, its operations in Indonesia were nationalized, and became part of , which in 1999 merged with there other state-owned banks, , , and , to form Bank Mandiri. As a consequence, most former NIEM properties in Indonesia became branches of Bank Mandiri. The remaining operations, assets and claims in the Netherlands were restructured as Nedesco Bank, whose business activities were acquired in 1960 by the Nederlandse Overzee Bank. In 1969, the Nederlandse Overzee Bank in turn merged with Mees & Hope, which in 1975 was acquired by

Algemene Bank Nederland Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN, "General Bank of the Netherlands") was a Dutch bank that was created in 1964 through the merger of the Netherlands Trading Society ( nl, Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij, NHM, est. 1824) with the (TB, est. 1861). I ...

. ABN then merged with AMRO Bank to form ABN AMRO in 1991, and in 1992 Mees & Hope subsequently merged with AMRO's investment banking arm, Pierson Heldring & Pierson, to form MeesPierson. In 1997, MeesPierson was acquired by

Fortis Group Fortis, formally Fortis N.V./S.A., was a Benelux-centered global financial services group active in insurance, banking and investment management, initially formed in 1990 by a three-way Belgian-Dutch merger and headquartered in Brussels. It grew ...

, then nationalized in 2008 by the Dutch government together with Fortis Bank Nederland, which in 2009 was again renamed ABN AMRO.

Gallery

File:Keizersgracht 573.JPG, Keizersgracht 573 in Amsterdam File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Kantoor van de Nederlandsch Indische Escompto Maatschappij in Batavia TMnr 10015469.jpg, Main office in Batavia, interwar period File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Kantoor van de Nederlandsch Indische Escompto Maatschappij in Weltevreden Batavia TMnr 10015470.jpg, Branch office in

, now Sawah Besar,

File:KITLV A34 - Het pand van de Nederlandsch-Indische Escompto Maatschappij te Bandoeng, KITLV 77968.tiff, Branch office in

, West Java1930s File:Bank Mandiri (27413369695).jpg, The same building in 2014, a branch of Bank Mandiri File:KITLV A1034 - Kantoor van de Nederlands Indische Escompto Maatschappij te Sibolga, KITLV 153261.tiff, Branch office in Sibolga,

North Sumatra North Sumatra ( id, Sumatra Utara) is a province of Indonesia located on the northern part of the island of Sumatra. Its capital and largest city is Medan. North Sumatra is Indonesia's fourth most populous province after West Java, East Java and ...

File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Kantoor van de Nederlandsch Indische Escompto Maatschappij in Bandjermasin TMnr 10015456.jpg, Branch office in Banjarmasin,

South Kalimantan South Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Selatan) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is the smallest province in Kalimantan, the Indonesian territory of Borneo. The provincial capital was Banjarmasin until 15 February 2022 when it wa ...

Notes

{{reflist Defunct banks of the Netherlands ABN AMRO Colonial architecture in Jakarta Dutch colonial architecture in Indonesia Defunct companies of the Dutch East Indies

Creation and development in the Dutch East Indies

Indonesian independence and aftermath

Gallery

See also

Notes