Rabobank Group

Rabobank's roots lie in agriculture. In 1898 two separate cooperative banks - the Coöperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen-Bank in Utrecht and the Coöperatieve Centrale Boerenleenbank in Eindhoven - were founded by enterprising rural folk, who, with little access to the capital market, decided to help one another.

Rabobank Nederland

The two banks served their rural communities independently for three-quarters of a century, both successfully practicing cooperative banking principles.  Therefore their 1972 merger was a logical partnership. In 1980 the bank decided to formally adopt the name that it had been using informally for some time - Rabobank Nederland – a combination of the first letters of the two original cooperative banks that sealed the fusion of their identities. Today Rabobank is owned by 152 local banks, all working together to provide financial services and products to the Dutch retail and business markets.

Rabobank International

Although Rabobank International was only formally established in 1996, international activities have long been part of that history. Rabobank International slowly came into existence over the course of the 1970s - when Rabobank’s business customers began to express a growing demand for services abroad. In response to a clear need for international banking services, Rabobank opened branch offices in Europe, North America, Asia and South America and entered into strategic alliances with European partners. It also purchased existing foreign banks (such as ADCA in Germany and PIBA in Australia, ACC in Ireland and the Valley Independent Bank in the US), enabling Rabobank to take its expertise in the field of consumer banking and the agricultural sector to promising markets abroad. Today the Rabobank Group has 603 offices in 46 different countries.