Rabobank (; full name: ''Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A.'') is a Dutch multinational banking and

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

company headquartered in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...

, Netherlands. The group comprises 89 local Dutch Rabobanks (2019), a central organisation (Rabobank Nederland), and many specialised international offices and

subsidiaries A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a sa ...

. Food and

agribusiness Agribusiness is the industry, enterprises, and the field of study of value chains in agriculture and in the bio-economy, in which case it is also called bio-business or bio-enterprise. The primary goal of agribusiness is to maximize profit w ...

constitute the primary international focus of the Rabobank Group. Rabobank is the second-largest bank in the Netherlands in terms of total assets. A 2013 scandal resulted in a $1 billion fine for unscrupulous trading practices, which included the manipulation of

LIBOR The London Inter-Bank Offered Rate is an interest-rate average calculated from estimates submitted by the leading banks in London. Each bank estimates what it would be charged were it to borrow from other banks. The resulting average rate is u ...

currency rates worldwide. Chief Executive Piet Moerland resigned immediately as a result. In terms of

Tier 1 capital Tier 1 capital is the core measure of a bank's financial strength from a regulator's point of view.By definition of Bank for International Settlements. It is composed of ''core capital'', which consists primarily of common stock and disclosed res ...

, the organisation is among the 30 largest financial institutions in the world. As of December 2014, total assets amount to €681 billion with a net profit of €1.8 billion. ''Global Finance'' ranks Rabobank 25th in its survey of "the world's safest banks".

History

Rooted in

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

, Rabobank is set up as a federation of local

credit unions A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provision ...

that offer services to the local markets.

Creation of farmers' banks

The bank was rooted in the ideas of

Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (30 March 1818 – 11 March 1888) was a German mayor and cooperative pioneer. Several credit union systems and cooperative banks have been named after Raiffeisen, who pioneered rural credit unions. Life Friedrich Wilh ...

, the founder of the cooperative movement of credit unions, who in 1864 created the first farmers' bank in Germany. Being a countryside mayor he was confronted with the abject poverty of the farmers and their families. He tried to alleviate this need through charitable aid, but realised that

self-reliance "Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false con ...

had more potential in the long run, and thus converted his charitable foundation into a farmers' bank in 1864. In doing so he created the ''Darlehnskassen-Verein'', which collected the savings of countryside dwellers and provided enterprising farmers with loans. This model found a lot of interest in the Netherlands at the end of the 19th century. One of the first of Raiffeisen's followers was Father Gerlacus van den Elsen, who stood at the basis of a number of local farmers' banks in the south of the Netherlands. The model caught on being championed by the clergy and the countryside

elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...

s. The mission of the farmers' lending banks was an idealistic one, but they always operated using strict business principles. Controversially, a founding principle of Rabobank's cooperative style was to cooperate in the interest of "warding off the

Shylock Shylock is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c. 1600). A Venetian Jewish moneylender, Shylock is the play's principal antagonist. His defeat and conversion to Christianity form the climax of the ...

" . The cooperative bank model assured a tight bond between invested capital and the community. Rabobank pinautomaat

Early cooperation

The bank's traditional headquarters are

and

Eindhoven Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

signature while the Raiffeisen-Bank had a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

background. In the past the Netherlands underwent a process of

pillarisation Pillarisation (from the nl, verzuiling) is the politico-denominational segregation of a society into groups by religion and associated political beliefs. These societies were (and in some areas, still are) vertically divided into two or more gr ...

(Dutch: ''verzuiling''), which in practice meant that members of different religious congregations and political movements essentially lived side by side, without contact between the two. A consequence of this pillarisation was that many villages hosted not one but two local banks, one each for Catholics and Protestants. The close-knit community banking that resulted helped these banks to better control their risks. Consequently, when the Dutch banking sector was devastated by a financial crisis in the early 1920s, these local banks survived largely unscathed. The religious backgrounds found their way to their organisational structures, as well; Boerenleenbank was highly centralised, while Raiffeisen-Bank promoted local

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...

Merger

By 1940, the two organisations cooperated with each other, albeit on a limited scale. Three major developments caused a further tightening of the bonds between the two: * An increase in the number of branches, leading to increased local competition * A gradual fading of the confessional differences between the two * An increasing demand for capital in the Dutch industry, which in turn led to higher

concentration In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', ''molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', an ...

in the banking business In 1972, the two organisations merged to form ''Coöperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen-Boerenleenbank'', or Rabobank for short. The organisation chose

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

to be its statutory headquarters due to its historical neutrality in relation to the founding organisations. From 1980 to 2015, the central organisation was referred to as Rabobank Nederland.

Overseas expansion

In 1980, Rabobank expanded its international activities as part of its mission to finance global agriculture. In 1990, it established a joint-venture bank in Indonesia by partnering with a local bank, Bank Duta, to form RabobankDuta. Bank Duta subsequently collapsed in the 1998 Asian financial crisis, and Rabobank bought Duta's share to operate solely as PT Bank Rabobank International Indonesia. In 1994, it purchased Primary Industry Bank of Australia (PIBA), which had operations in Australia and New Zealand, and renamed it Rabobank Australia Limited in 2003. In 1997, it purchased New Zealand–based Wrightson Farmers Finance Limited and renamed it Rabobank New Zealand in 1999. Rabobank became a significant lender to the rural sector in New Zealand with this purchase and used this as a base to expand its lending business further. Rabobank purchased Australian company Lend Lease Agro Business in 2003. In 2008, it expanded its operations in Indonesia by buying two retail banks, Bank Haga and Bank Hagakita. The bank has offices in 38 countries. Utrecht-America Holdings, Inc. and Rabobank N.A. operate as subsidiaries of the Rabobank Group in the United States. In 2019, it was announced that Rabobank sold its American retail business to

Mechanics Bank Mechanics Bank is a full-service community banking financial institution headquartered in Walnut Creek, California.Rabobank.be. A second online savings banks was launched in 2005 in Ireland under the name of

RaboDirect Rabobank (; full name: ''Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A.'') is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands. The group comprises 89 local Dutch Rabobanks (2019), a central organisation (Raboba ...

, and then as RaboPlus in New Zealand and two years later in Australia. After a small hiatus new online banks were opened in Poland (2011) and Germany (2012). The advertising campaigns used to promote the savings business in Ireland and New Zealand raised the profile of Rabobank generally in those countries resulting in an increase in not only its savings business but also in its lending businesses. In 2010, Rabobank decided to use the same brand name in Australia and New Zealand for the savings bank and replaced RaboPlus with RaboDirect in these countries. In 2014, Rabobank worked with Vasco, now

OneSpan OneSpan (formerly Vasco Data Security International, Inc.) is a publicly traded cybersecurity technology company based in Chicago, Illinois with offices in Montreal, Brussels and Zurich. The company offers a cloud-based and open architected ant ...

, to create a new online authentication system using QR codes.

Acquisitions

Rabobank completed the acquisition of Mid-State Bank & Trust on May 1, 2007, which allows Rabo to expand its services to the Central Coast region of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, United States. In 2010, it also acquired Pacific State Bank, expanding into the

Central Valley of California The Central Valley is a broad, elongated, flat valley that dominates the interior of California. It is wide and runs approximately from north-northwest to south-southeast, inland from and parallel to the Pacific coast of the state. It covers ...

Development

Right from the start the cooperative banks prospered. They managed to perform the key tasks of a banking organisation, that is, bringing excess capital and capital shortages together. These moneylenders stood close to the farmers and were better in judging the creditworthiness of individual farmers than the city banks. This allowed the banks to offer lower

interest rate An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed (called the principal sum). The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, th ...

s. The local banks were

self-governed __NOTOC__ Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any form o ...

by members of the cooperation. They adhered to the principle of non-remunerated management and elected the board and the commissioners from among themselves. Only the

cashier A retail cashier or simply a cashier is a person who handles the cash register at various locations such as the point of sale in a retail store. The most common use of the title is in the retail industry, but this job title is also used in the ...

received a small salary. This has changed, but even as recently as in late 1950s the local bank office was nothing more than the cashier's living room, he generally performed his administrative duties besides another regular job. Much later, in the 1960s the most local banks moved into new and modern offices that reflected their new-found professionalism. The position cashier was replaced by a local bank director. Since 1998 the local bank director is an appointed professional banker and he presides over a board of directors which is chosen from among the members. Local presence and local autonomy were always important but this hasn't stopped a wave of concentration of the local banks. The major rationale behind this was the need to attain economies of scale in the fields of payments, transaction, processing, staff and capital. Increasing customer demand for standardized and widely available products also played a significant part in this development. Currently the motto is: this applies to the size of the local bank offices. Traditionally the bank served mostly farmers and small businesses. Since the introduction of consumer salary accounts in the 1960s the number of retail clients grew exponentially. This has led to Rabobank being a prominent player in the field of

savings account A savings account is a bank account at a retail bank. Common features include a limited number of withdrawals, a lack of cheque and linked debit card facilities, limited transfer options and the inability to be overdrawn. Traditionally, transac ...

checking account A transaction account, also called a checking account, chequing account, current account, demand deposit Demand deposits or checkbook money are funds held in demand accounts in commercial banks. These account balances are usually considered m ...

s and

mortgages A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

in the Netherlands. In June 2012, rating agency

Moody's Moody's Investors Service, often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its historical name. Moody's Investors Service provides international ...

downgraded Rabobank's to Aa2 (previously Aaa), with a negative outlook. Due to a new rating methodology in November 2011 by rating agency

Standard & Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is con ...

, the credit status was downgraded two steps from AAA to AA. In November 2014, S&P lowered the rating from AA- to A+ with a negative outlook. Rating agency Fitch rates the credit status of the bank AA-, with a negative outlook. As per the new strategy, Rabobank is planning to exit some markets. In September 2014, Rabobank sold Bank BGZ to

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas is a French international banking group, founded in 2000 from the merger between Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP, "National Bank of Paris") and Paribas, formerly known as the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. The full name of the grou ...

for $1.39 billion. Unlike most major banks, Rabobank's central organisation was originally a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

of the local branches. However, new banking regulations made a new arrangement necessary. In late 2015, on the recommendation of a specially-created Governance Committee, Rabobank's 106 cooperative banks voted unanimously to merge with Rabobank Nederland. The merger took effect on 1 January 2016. While the 106 Rabobanks still have considerable autonomy, the central organisation is now the parent body. A 2013 scandal resulted in a $1 billion fine for unscrupulous trading practices, which included the manipulation of

currency rates worldwide. Chief Executive Piet Moerland resigned immediately as a result.

Job cuts

In December 2015, Rabobank announced to cut 9,000 jobs by 2018 (3,000 jobs by the end of 2016) and almost a fifth of its current workforce. The policy was to comply with the tougher Basel IV rulebook.

Organisation structure

The Rabobank Group consists of a network of local banks, Rabobank Nederland and several daughter organisations. Previously, the local Rabobanks were the mother organisation of Rabobank Nederland, their central organisation. The local banks were facilitated by Rabobank Nederland to serve their customers, not the other way around as is often the case with traditional banking organisations. Employees of the group did not routinely speak of a headquarters but preferred to speak of Rabobank Nederland, which was their daughter organisation. In 2016, however, the local banks merged with Rabobank Nederland, while retaining significant independence. Even before 2016, the central organisation occasionally overruled the autonomy of the local bank organisations. In accordance with Dutch regulations in the field of credit and financial services Rabobank Nederland oversees that the local banks maintain a required level of prudence and professionalism while selling financial products. This has grown to be especially important in view of international standards such as

Sarbanes–Oxley Act The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 is a United States federal law that mandates certain practices in financial record keeping and reporting for corporations. The act, (), also known as the "Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protecti ...

Basel II Basel II is the second of the Basel Accords, which are recommendations on banking laws and regulations issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. It is now extended and partially superseded by Basel III. The Basel II Accord was publis ...

and

IFRS International Financial Reporting Standards, commonly called IFRS, are accounting standards issued by the IFRS Foundation and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). They constitute a standardised way of describing the company's fina ...

. This leads to a rather unusual phenomenon within international business: the mother companies and the much larger daughter are essentially forced to coexist in order to function properly. This has led to a very ambivalent relationship between the two over the years. At the time of the merger there were five management instruments within Rabobank Nederland: # ''Algemene Vergadering'' – general assembly. The boards of all local banks within the cooperation were represented there. # ''De Centrale Kringvergadering'' – advisory board manned by representatives of clusters of local banks. # ''De Hoofddirectie'' – general management. Theoretically they were an autonomous management organ, but in practice, they had to pay 'serious consideration' to what the 4th organ; ''Raad van Beheer''; thought about the course of action for the organisation. # ''Raad van Beheer'' – management council. An independent advisory council whose chairman also attended the meetings of ''De Hoofddirectie''. # ''Raad van Toezicht'' – supervisory board In 2002 this structure was simplified. The ''Raad van Beheer'' was disbanded. De ''Hoofddirectie'' received an integral authority over the banking business. It was also renamed to ''Raad van Bestuur'' or

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

. They have an added task compared to a traditional board i.e., they are expected to look out for the specific interests of the members (local banks and their certificate holders). The ''Raad van Toezicht'' was renamed to

county commission A county commission (or a board of county commissioners) is a group of elected officials (county commissioners) collectively charged with administering the county government in some states of the United States; such commissions usually comprise ...

and now held an independent supervisory role. The chairman of this board also presides over the ''Centrale Kringvergadering''. The latter is the most distinguishing organ as compared to other financial institutions in the Netherlands and abroad.

Market position

Rabobank is traditionally a farmers' bank and it still holds an 85% to 90% market share in the agrarian sector in the Netherlands. Throughout the years, the company has also started targeting small and medium-sized companies. By the mid 1970s the market share in this sector reached some 30% and currently amounts to approximately 40%. In 1987, an important milestone was reached; the total outstanding loans in sectors other than agriculture exceeded those in the agricultural sector for the first time. By 2005 the agricultural credits amounted to some 8% of total outstanding credit. Rabobank also holds some 40% of the total outstanding sums on Dutch savings accounts and they account for approximately 30% of all private consumer mortgages in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, Rabobank is the third-largest retail bank by market share, and second largest by number of current accounts at 30%.

ING Group The ING Group ( nl, ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale bankin ...

is the largest with 40% of current accounts, followed by Rabobank (30%),

ABN AMRO ABN or abn may refer to: Companies * ABN AMRO Group, a Dutch bank group * ABN AMRO, sometimes referred to as "ABN" in shorthand, is a Dutch state-owned bank * Algemene Bank Nederland, a now-defunct Dutch bank Radio, news and television organizat ...

(20%), and others (10%). The Rabobank Group currently consists of the following divisions: * Rabobank Nederland – the facilitary and staff organisation that serves the local banks. It currently performs the following core activities: ** Market (staff) support for the domestic

retail banking Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking. Banking servi ...

business ** Group functions i.e., ICT, Legal and other facilitary departments ** Wholesale banking and international rural and retail banking * Local Banks – Approximately 89 cooperative local banks in the Netherlands * Rabo Wholesale Rural & Retail – Rabobank's wholesale banking and investment division * Rabo Vastgoed Groep – Project developer, real estate * DLL (De Lage Landen) –

vendor finance Vendor finance is a form of lending in which a company lends money to be used by the borrower to buy the vendor's products or property. Vendor finance is usually in the form of deferred loans from, or shares subscribed by, the vendor. The vendor o ...

, leasing and trade finance * Rembrandt Fusies & Overnames – corporate finance * Schretlen & Co – asset management,

private banking Private banking is banking, investment and other financial services provided by banks and financial institutions primarily serving high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs)—defined as those with very high levels of income or sizable assets. A bank that ...

sector * Obvion –

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

intermediary * FGH Bank – Dutch

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

bank * Rabobank Ireland plc * Rabobank New Zealand Limited - a registered bank in New Zealand * Rabo AgriFinance, headquartered in

St Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which ...

ACC Loan Management ACC Loan Management Limited, formerly ACCBank plc, was originally a commercial bank in Ireland that focused on agriculture and SME lending, and later became a company that focussed on managing the lending facilities of its existing clients. The ban ...

, Ireland * Utrecht-America Holdings, Inc. -

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

-based U.S. financial

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

Rabo Mobiel Rabo Mobiel was a Dutch Mobile virtual network operator. It was launched on 15 November 2006 into a market where 50 virtual network operators were active at the time. Rabo Mobiel runs in cooperation with mother company Rabobank Nederland, offer ...

– a

mobile virtual network operator A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobil ...

in the Netherlands (2005–2014) * Rabo Development, with advisory services and minority participations in various international markets, including:

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

RaboDirect

RaboDirect, formerly RaboPlus in some locations is the brand name for online-only services offered by Rabobank. ''RaboDirect'' operates in Belgium, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Germany offering

s, term deposits and

managed funds Active management (also called ''active investing'') is an approach to investing. In an actively managed portfolio (finance), portfolio of investments, the investor selects the investments that make up the portfolio. Active management is often com ...

. In Belgium it is known as Rabobank.be.

Ireland

RaboDirect Ireland was an online savings bank. In 2009, RaboDirect ran the marketing campaign that included TV commercials which featured staff confessing truths about themselves, and a

microsite A microsite is an individual web page or a small cluster of pages which are meant to function as a discrete entity (such as an iFrame) within an existing website or to complement an offline activity. The microsite's main landing page can have its ...

called Truthbank where customers could "confess" their own truths. RaboDirect was the sponsor of

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

Pro12 The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. The current name was adopted in 2021 when the league expanded to include four South Afr ...

from the 2011-12 season until 2013–14, it featured teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The deal was announced in June 2011, during which time the league was known as the RaboDirect Pro12. On 21 February RaboDirect announced that it would be closing down its Irish operations from 16 May 2018, with the loss of 31 jobs.

New Zealand

RaboDirect, originally known as RaboPlus, was launched in February 2006 and was at the time only bank in New Zealand whose parent company was rated AAA by

(the credit rating has since been downgraded and as of October 2015 is A).

Australia

On 23 May 2007, Rabobank opened a RaboPlus Internet bank in Australia. On 20 May 2010, the services were rebranded to RaboDirect. RaboDirect is the major partner of the

Melbourne Rebels The Melbourne Rebels is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Melbourne. They made their debut in SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. They were the first privately owned professional rugby union team in Australia, until 2017 ...

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

side. By 2011 over $6 billion had been gathered in deposits.

Germany

On 20 June 2012, Rabobank opened a RaboDirect in Germany. Rabobank has had a presence in Germany since 1984. It has operated in the field of corporate finance and has been primarily active in the food and agriculture sector in the country.

Poland

Rabobank operated a direct bank in Poland, but under the Bank BGZ operation and using the name "BGZ Optima". The Polish business including BGZ Optima was subsequently sold to French bank

in December 2013 for around $1.4 billion.

Naming rights

Rabobank has naming rights to several venues and organizations, including: *

Rabobank Arena Mechanics Bank Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Bakersfield, California. Located downtown at the corner of Truxtun Avenue and N Street, it was built in 1998, and was originally known as Centennial Garden, a name submitted by local resident Brian ...

Bakersfield Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...

, California *

Rabobank Theater and Convention Center The Mechanics Bank Theater and Convention Center (formerly Bakersfield Civic Auditorium) is a performing arts theater and convention facility located in Bakersfield, California (specifically in the Civic Center, Downtown). It is adjacent to the ...

, Bakersfield, California * Rabobank Stadium, Salinas, California *

Rabobank Development Team Rabobank Development Team was a professional bicycle racing team, the development team of the former ''Rabobank'' team now known as . The team folded after the 2016 season. Team 2016 Roster in 2016, age as of 1 January 2016: ...

, cycling team * Rabobank-Liv/giant, cycling team *

Rabobank Bestuurscentrum The Rabobank Bestuurscentrum or Rabotoren (English: ''Rabobank Executive Centre'' or ''Rabotower'') is a skyscraper in the Dutch city of Utrecht, built between 2007 and 2011 and designed by the architectural firm . At , it is the highest office bui ...

, skyscraper,

References

External links

Rabobank Group homepage
{{Authority control Banks of the Netherlands Cooperatives in the Netherlands Cooperative banking in Europe Dutch brands Banks established in 1972 Companies based in Utrecht (province) Banks under direct supervision of the European Central Bank Dutch companies established in 1972