A global one-stop shop: ABN AMRO

Global Finance, Summer 2001

ABN AMRO, a holding company based in the Netherlands and operating in more than 20 countries, is in the midst of a push in the e-- finance space through its acquired units, especially those in the United States. ABN AMRO has assets of more than $458 billion, io million retail and commercial clients, io,ooo corporate clients, and 3,500 branches worldwide. In February ABN AMRO agreed to sell EAB, one of its holding companies, to Citibank in a deal that is scheduled to be completed by mid-2001.

ABN AMRO has made most of its e-- finance initiatives through its US holdings- LaSalle Bank, Standard Federal Bank, and EAR From its home page, www. abnamro.com, it offers links to local Web sites for services for corporate, commercial, and private banking customers. Based in the United States, ABN AMRO North America (www.abnamronorthamerica. com), with $183 billion in assets, manages the services, Web sites, and acquisitions of its North American entities.

CONSUMER &SERVICES

ABN AMRO North America makes the decisions for all of the holding company's units, and it partners with the same technology providers for them all, resulting in a consistent look, feel, navigation, and service offering throughout.

For example, on the Web site for Chicago-based LaSalle Bank, with $49 billion in assets, retail customers can access all types of accounts offered, check account activity, download account information to Quicken or Microsoft Money, transfer funds from one account to another, aggregate other bank accounts, and pay bills. Through a partnership with Financial Fusion, LaSalle Bank has created a comprehensive I-banking application for its retail customers. The bill payment service is free for the first three months and can be used at a rate of $3.95 per month thereafter. Aggregation services are provided by Yodlee and are free with online banking. The application was launched in February 2000, and, although no figures are currently available on the number of online accounts currently signed up, according to the bank, the site's usage increased more than 80% in 2000. Currently, there are no wireless services offered.

Brokerage and investment services are available through the site's brokerage outlet, SpeedTrade (www.speedtrade.lasalle-- bank.com). At SpeedTrade customers can check account details, histories, balances, and order status, can perform research, do financial planning, and make trades. LaSalle Bank has a variety of fees, but the basic charge is $19.95 per trade of up to woo shares. Each additional share traded is $.02. All ABN AMRO units point customers to SpeedTrade for their brokerage needs.

In December 2000 ABN AMRO bought the rights to the domain names mortgage.com and hipoteca.com-which means mortgage in Spanish. ABN AMRO has already converted www.mortgage. com to its own branded site but has yet to launch hipoteca.com

SMALL-BUSINESS &SERVICES

ABN AMRO offers the same online banking services to small businesses that it does to retail customers. One difference, however, is that business clients must pay $14-95 per month to use Quicken, QuickBooks, or Microsoft Money to manage finances. A few additional services are offered to help small businesses grow. ECreator is LaSalle's e-commerce development tool. With this application, small businesses can create Web sites and shopping carts, process payments, manage and merchandise inventories, and market services. Through a partnership with First Data, small-business clients can accept and process credit card transactions after creating an e-- commerce Web site with eCreator.

Moreover, LaSalle offers a financial information watch service through a partnership with YellowBrix. Through the Competitive Business Industry Watch service, clients can get timely market information, real-time stock quotes, and business news from more than 55 industries. LaSalle also offers a "print and apply" service for loans, letters of credit, and credit cards, as well as SpeedTrade for online brokerage.

CORPORATE AND INSTITUTIONAL E-SERVICES

At www.vip.lasallebank.com, high-- net-worth individuals can access a variety of functions, such as account balance, financial planning, private banking resources, brokerage, investment management, trust services, news and research, and insurance.

In 1999 it launched Easy Client (www.easyclient.com), a technology platform with ABN AMRO, for its premier banking clients.

ABN AMRO describes its commercial strategy as "online correspondent banking services," for which the bank launched Trade Station Online, where importers and exporters can perform daily foreign exchange tasks online.

With CashProWeb software, corporate clients can perform wire transfers, buy and sell federal mutual funds, and check account activity. In addition, ABN AMRO makes travel services and expense management tools available from the commercial services link on the home page.