LONDON — ABN Amro, the state-owned Dutch lender, said on Friday that it planned to cut up to 1,000 jobs in its retail bank and invest significantly in its digital platform over the next four years, as customers increasingly conduct their financial lives online.
The reorganization of the retail bank, its largest business, is the latest overhaul for ABN Amro as the Dutch government prepares to privatize the lender. The bank was nationalized during the financial crisis in 2008 and is expected to be sold in an initial public offering as soon as next year.
On Friday, ABN Amro said it would spend 150 million euros, or about $187 million, on improving customer transactions online and by mobile phone by 2018.
“We will also further concentrate the branch network and upgrade the branches, offering a broader range of services at each branch,” the bank said in a news release on Friday.
As a result, ABN Amro said, it expects to cut 650 to 1,000 full-time jobs by 2018 in its retail bank. It plans to take a provision of €50 million to €75 million related to those cuts in the fourth quarter.
ABN Amro is the latest European lender to announce plans to invest significantly in online and mobile phone banking and to reduce its branch network over the next few years as fewer customers conduct traditional banking activities in person.
Lloyds Banking Group of Britain said last month that it would shed up to 9,000 jobs and close up to 150 branches as part of a digital push. In June, the Royal Bank of Scotland said it planned to spend up to 1 billion pounds, or about $1.58 billion, in reshaping its retail bank for a more digitally focused strategy.
Separately, ABN Amro said on Friday that its third-quarter profit had declined to €383 million, down from €390 million in the period a year earlier.
Its third-quarter results included a charge of €67 million related to a bank levy imposed by the Dutch government to help fund the nationalization of a rival bank, SNS Reaal, last year.
Underlying profit, which excludes divestitures and other special charges, increased 56 percent to €450 million as the bank’s provisions for poorly performing loans declined.
Net interest income — the measure of what a bank earns on its lending after deducting what it pays out on deposits and other liabilities — rose 15 percent to €1.53 billion in the third quarter, while operating expenses were stable at €1.15 billion.
The bank’s common equity Tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of its ability to weather financial disturbances, rose to 12.9 percent at the end of September, up from 12.2 percent at the end of 2013.