Dutch business owners see hell at bank over “Nigeria connection”

Customers of a Dutch bank have lamented apparently excessive scrutiny by a bank in Netherland over their business connections to Nigeria, according to local media.

Entrepreneurs active in Nigeria said that Rabobank was “bullying” and “terrorizing” them with its anti-money laundering policy because of their business ties to Nigeria. They said the lender bombards them with forms and questions, and freezes their accounts at any time, according to Financieele Dagblad, which cited four business owners.

The publication narrated the experience of Rod Decker, whose company it said sold and shipped trucks to West Africa, mainly Nigeria, for 34 years. Decker said he has moved his business out of the Netherlands.

“I was terrorized for 2.5 years, it was a witch hunt,” he reported said.

The business owner said Rabobank contacted him every day about his company’s transactions. “I had to fill out all kinds of documents again and again, reduce the share of cash payments to less than 10%, and renovate my database for a lot of money,” he reportedly said.

Deckers recounted that he did everything possible to meet Rabobank’s increasingly stringent and “unattainable” deadlines and demands. Despite his efforts, in October, the bank notified him that his company was deemed too high a risk for money laundering and terrorism financing.

“The relationship with Rabo was terminated within a month, and everything was blocked,” Deckers said, adding that this brought his company’s operations, which once had a turnover of over 60 million euros, to a standstill.

Financieele Dagblad said it received similar reports from three other Dutch entrepreneurs in Nigeria. They shared that conducting business with Rabobank had become untenable, as they faced continuous accusations of suspicious transactions.

The paper quoted a Rabobank spokesperson saying that it is the bank’s job to track each customer’s profile and check its transactions against this.

“It is clear that large volumes of cash and money flow to and from countries where there are higher risks in the financial system are more vulnerable to mixing with criminal activities. These are difficult to map from the Netherlands,” the official said.

Anti-money Laundering

Rabobank’s stringent anti-money laundering policy stems from the Netherlands’ Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (Prevention) Act, which requires banks to scrutinize their customers and report any unusual transactions to the financial intelligence unit of the police.

Nigeria was added to the high-risk countries list last year, prompting banks to monitor their customers in these regions with increased vigilance.

Rabobank is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands. The group comprises 89 local Dutch Rabobanks.