ABN Amro, the Netherlands' largest domestic lender, has reported a first-quarter underlying net income of €615m with a growing loan book and better margins against the backdrop of a strong Dutch economy.
Analysts polled for Reuters had expected an underlying net income of €516m in the quarter ended March, compared with €475m the same time a year earlier.
"We have been able to offset the low and negative rate environment and increase net interest income by growing all major loan books: mortgages, small & medium enterprise, and corporate loans, and by lowering deposit rates," CEO Kees van Dijkhuizen said.
With nearly 50% of its loan book linked to the local property market, ABN benefited from an ongoing construction boom and strong price gains in the housing market, and unusually low levels of defaults.
Dijkhuizen, a former director of the Dutch treasury who had been CFO at the bank until he assumed the top job in January, has undertaken a purge of senior management over the past five months.
He has cut the executive board to just three people and put other managing director and executives onto a smaller committee of nine - down from 19. He also cut the third layer of managers to 63 from 90.
Since ABN Amro was bailed out by the Dutch state in 2008, the company has strongly refocused its operations and orientation on the Dutch market, where it now does 79% of its lending.
Much of its international business is linked to Dutch companies with operations abroad, or to Dutch private banking clients.
Although the bank was re-privatised in 2015, ABN Amro's board meetings and press conferences until Abrahams' appointment have been conducted exclusively in Dutch, though most of its public shareholder base is foreign.
Dijkhuizen said in February he would seek modest growth in international lending, focusing on commodities, renewable energy, food supply chain and utility providers.
