The FINANCIAL -- ABN AMRO Bank and Fortis Bank Nederland (FBN) will merge in 2010.

Both banks are currently making the necessary preparations. The 5.5 million ABN AMRO and FBN consumer clients in the Netherlands will be the first to notice the effects of the integration in 2010. The merger still requires the formal approval of the relevant authorities, including the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) and the European Commission.

The integration will become visible in towns and cities from early April onwards, as 150 ABN AMRO and FBN branches will be merged. For FBN clients the integration will mean a significant increase in the number of branches they can use: from 150 now to more than 500 in the future. For ABN AMRO clients the number of branches will remain the same, but the services they provide will be further extended.

The transition will be gradual for clients. "Twinning" will be applied, under which ABN AMRO and FBN clients will be served in the same premises in the above-mentioned 150 branches, but still separately for the time being. This means that the ABN AMRO branches to be merged will temporarily have a special FBN counter, so that FBN clients can still call on their trusted staff members and vice versa. This should be regarded as a bridging arrangement until the time of the legal merger (early in the second half of 2010), after which the migration of clients from FBN to ABN AMRO systems will be started. The merger will then be completed before the end of this year.

The key figures for the new retail bank will be as follows:

5.5 million consumer clients (with assets up to EUR 1 million); 5 regions, 50 districts, more than 500 branches distributed across the Netherlands; 7,500 staff members (FTEs) in 2013; more than 1,300 cash dispensers and 590 multifunctional cash dispensers; cooperation with Commercial & Merchant Banking (Bernadette Langius) and Private Banking (Frans van Lanschot); head office of ABN AMRO Retail Banking at Foppingadreef 22, Amsterdam; 4 Customer Contact Centres (CCCs) and sophisticated Internet Banking; specialised subsidiaries for mortgages, credit cards and consumer lending; the director of ABN AMRO Retail Banking is Paulus de Wilt. To answer any questions from clients during the integration period, additional staff will be deployed in the branches and the Customer Contract Centres, and the branches will open more frequently in the evenings. Additional investments will also be made in computerisation.

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