Ladies and gentlemen. [Foreign language]. Gentlemen, might I invite you to take a seat. Very good. It's already one minute past two, and that means we're starting behind schedule. That's not the way I like to do things, as you know, most of you in the room. My suggestion is that we make a start. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders and receipt holders, I hereby open the meeting, and I'd like to welcome you all very warmly to this general meeting of shareholders. Well, with us today, we've got the entire Supervisory Board. Arjen Dorland, to my left, he's the Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board and Chair of the Remuneration Committee. We've got Tjalling Tiemstra, Audit Committee. Alastair Auckland, Chair of the Risk and Capital Committee.
Marguerite Bérard, Michiel Lap, Laetitia Griffith, and myself, I am the Chair of the Supervisory Board. For the Executive Board, the following are with us today. Some of them actually in the room. On the front row and some in the room. Robert Swaak, CEO. Tanja Cuppen, Chief Risk Officer. Christian Bornfeld, Chief of Innovation and Technology. Dan Dorner over there, Chief Commercial Officer for Corporate Banking. Choy van der Hooft-Cheong, Chief Commercial Officer for Wealth Management. And Annerie Vreugdenhil, Chief Commercial Officer for Personal and Business Banking. And Gerard Penning, Chief Human Resources Officer. Lars Kramer, Vice Chairman and CFO, is sadly, regrettably, that's regretted by me and by him, unable to join us because he got COVID-19 and he's ill in bed, so we wish him all a speedy recovery from all of us in the room. We look forward to seeing him again.
The secretary of the meeting today is Hanneke Dorsman, General Counsel and Company Secretary of ABN AMRO, sitting to my left. On for EY, we've got Bernard Roemers with us over there. For the employee council, we've got Arlene Bosman directly opposite me. Welcome, Arlene. Notary Public Niels Wolswijk from Zuidbroek Notarissen is here with us in order to make sure that the voting at today's meeting takes place in a correct manner. Well, ladies and gentlemen, before we move on to the meeting proper, I would just like to say a few words about current events in Ukraine. The images of war which reach us day by day shock us deeply, and our thoughts are with the innocent citizens who are hit by this war in their daily lives.
Robert will come back to this at a later stage, and particularly to talk about the impact this has had on ABN AMRO. Could I just have your attention for a few practicalities? Shareholders and depository receipt holders are present with us either in the room or online. This makes it a hybrid meeting. In addition to that, it was also possible to cast your vote either by electronic proxy or by written proxy. As is normally, the meeting is held in Dutch, but also as usual, it is being transmitted live in an English and Dutch webcast on our website. The whole meeting is being recorded simply and solely for minuting purposes. The minutes of this meeting will be made available for at least three months, no later than 19 July 2022, and will be available for comments on ABN AMRO website.
After that, the minutes will then be adopted in accordance with the articles of association and signed by Hanneke Dorsman, Secretary, and myself. I note the shareholders and receipt holders have been summoned in accordance with the law and the articles of association, that the meeting therefore can take legally valid decisions and that the share and certificate holders have not submitted any issues for today's meeting. I'll now give you a quick run through of the way we'll be doing today's meeting. You saw the agenda in the summons. Now some of the agenda items are broken down into several sub-items. For example, agenda item two. This is actually 2A to 2H.
What we'll do is we'll try to go through as many of these issues all in a row, and at the end of the presentations, then we will ask any questions relating to all the presentations together. On agenda item two, that will happen after we've heard the EY presentation. Now agenda item 2F is an advisory voting item, and so before that happens, you will also get the opportunity to ask questions. Questions at that point will only be related to the 2021 remuneration report. I think that in the light of the interplay between these agenda items, we think you will then get a full and complete picture of the situation. We would like to invite all shareholders and receipt holders to follow the meeting and take an active part in the meeting.
When answering questions for each agenda item, we will deal first with questions that we have received in advance. They will go through questions, agenda item by agenda item, as posed by participants in the meeting, either live on the chat or here in the meeting room. If you wish to ask a question using the live chat during the course of the meeting, please just go ahead and do so. We would ask you, please, to do it as early as possible once we started the corresponding agenda item. Of course, you can ask your questions before that if you want. Indeed, we would like you to. More general questions will be dealt with as much as possible in the any other business item. We would like to make sure all participants are able to ask a question.
At the same time, we want to avoid getting too out of time. In order to give everyone the opportunity to speak, we would therefore ask you please to ask no more than three questions per agenda item. Now all of you can cast your vote at any point in the meeting. As you see, voting is already open. You can carry on voting until we've reached the end of agenda item eight. That's the last agenda item, therefore. That's the last agenda item on which there is voting. The voting results will therefore only be published at the very end of the meeting. This brings me to the end of agenda item one, and we'll move on to deal with the report of the Executive Board. Agenda item 2A. Report of the Executive Board. I'll invite Robert Swaak to take the floor.
He's going to stand up to speak to you.
Good afternoon. Welcome. Welcome to this fine ABN AMRO building. I'm delighted to see you face-to-face again. For two years, I attended this wonderful meeting on camera and then watched that same camera trying to figure out how I would get used to speaking with you face-to-face about the previous year again. But I'm delighted to do this on behalf of the executive board, and I will elaborate on all operations and results that we achieved during the year that lies behind us. Once again, a year of COVID-19. Although, as Tom said, the war in Ukraine makes this seem like it was way in the past, but still only recently with the decision taken to scale back the COVID-19 measures. The bank made progress during that year, including strategy implementation.
First, I'd like to say that I'm delighted to be standing here today after having attended this meeting and conducted this meeting virtually for two years. In the spirit of dynamic leadership, I identified four priorities when I joined that remained relevant in 2021. Helping the bank, together with our team and staff, get through the COVID-19 crisis, our license to operate, strategy implementation, and the culture at our bank. Four priorities defined when I joined and remaining relevant. I'm delighted and proud of how the bank, and especially the bank staff, prevailed throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Despite difficult circumstances, we remained dedicated to our customers and continued our services without interruption. As for our license to operate, the settlement with prosecution last April was a major step for the bank.
We continue to focus on our role as gatekeepers and to complete the ongoing remediation programs. We've made progress on our strategic agenda. For example, scaling back the non-core section of our commercial bank is almost complete, ahead of schedule, greatly improving the bank's risk profile. We also worked hard on data foundations and digitization. As soon as it was possible, we distributed the closing dividend for 2019 in October, and we're working hard on our first share buyback program that we announced in February. I'll say more about the bank strategy and our progress there later on, but first I'd like to address our culture, our fourth priority. For a valuable and healthy future of the bank, our culture and license to operate are essential.
It's who we are and what we represent, a culture that derives from the bank's purpose, banking for better for generations to come. During the past year, we embedded our core values, care, courage, and collaboration, to continue to strengthen the culture in our organization. That was a major step forward, major progress, and culture continues to figure high on my agenda. As stated, I'll speak briefly about our purpose and strategy. Our purpose, banking for better for generations to come, offers this bank and our staff a compass. To make the right choices and decisions in everything we do. That remained clear throughout the pandemic, and also on matters such as climate change, where we serve our customers and address social inequality. Our social purpose guides all our actions. The three strategic pillars of the bank have been customer experience, sustainability, and a future-proof bank since 2018.
At the end of 2020, we scrutinized that strategy again. Building on the bank's strong foundations, we made some clear choices. We aim to be a personal bank in a digital era and to serve customers on markets where we have scale, and we aim to be the main partner for sustainability. We've been working on this for years. We're going to make the bank simpler and more efficient, and we will embed this in a culture of taking responsibility, in part to secure our license to operate. This provides us with a stable base to serve our customers, to grow in specific segments, to curtail costs, and increase profitability. Now, what did we do on our strategic agenda in 2021? We achieved progress in strategy implementation.
I mentioned the rapid downsizing of the non-core sections of our commercial bank and our strong market positions, for example, in mortgages and SME, are an important foundation for the bank's future. We launched various growth initiatives, such as repositioning Moneyou mortgages. In Germany, an entrepreneurial enterprise unit is now live, so that we can serve entrepreneurs in an integrated manner for their commercial and personal banking needs. In the past years, sustainability has proven increasingly important for the bank commercially as well. In 2021, we set up the Sustainable Impact Fund that invests in important transition sectors such as energy, circular, and social. We also offer mortgage customers purchasing a home with energy label B a sustainability discount. We use our expertise to support our customers in transitioning to a sustainable society, as I'll describe later on.
In addition, we worked hard to make the bank more simpler and more efficient, so that our front office staff can focus entirely on our customers. We also changed the bank structure. Rather than four business units with their individual CEOs, we now have three client units. Our first client unit, personal bank and business banking, is developing and supplying all digital capacities and services for our customers, while the second and third client units, wealth management and corporate banking, focus mainly on expertise. This enables us to do better justice to our principle, which is to add convenience to our customers' daily lives and share expertise when it matters. Our bank is well-positioned, has a clear profile, a strong strategic focus, and a very robust capital position. Now, let's try to look ahead in a world marked by insecurity.
In recent years, the low interest rate has severely pressured our interest income. We do expect to experience this pressure for some time to come. Previously, I touched on the war in Ukraine, where the course of events are accelerating and continue to do so. I'm deeply worried about this war, very deeply worried. It's very concerning because it is and remains a frontal attack on democratic principles and freedom at a scale unprecedented in Europe since World War II. The direct impact on the bank is very limited. Our exposure to Russia is less than EUR 50 million, and we have no direct exposures in Ukraine and Belarus. At the same time, there's been a spike in energy costs, consequences for cybersecurity and increasing insecurity in general have obviously impacted the Dutch economy, our customers, and consequently our banks as well.
Of course, we are focusing carefully on these developments in implementing our strategy. In the years ahead, we will continue to focus on growth segments and the new customer service model. We will remain very disciplined in costs. Before I tell you more about the bank's financial results, I'd like to tell you a bit about the Dutch economy, our biggest market. Even during last year's COVID crisis, the Dutch economy was highly resilient and grew by 5% in 2021. Because of the broad and ongoing support of the corporate industry by the Dutch government, the impact was less severe than in many other European countries. The prospects for our economy, however, have become more insecure because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and high inflation.
The impact on the bank will depend in part on how quickly the economy adjusts to the high gas prices and the supply shock that reverberates throughout Europe. As for 2021, we're back to profits after a disappointing 2020 that you heard me mention last year. Our interest income remains under pressure, in part because of the ongoing low interest rates and scaling back the non-core activities of the commercial bank. In the past year, costs remained controlled and we achieved our cost target of EUR 5.3 billion in 2021, not including the settlement with the prosecution. Despite high costs of fighting financial crime, credit facilities were very low, even negative. The improved risk profile of our bank manifests in through-the-cycle cost of risk at about 20 basis points. We remain a very strongly capitalized bank, well able to withstand economic adversity.
In October, after the ECB dividend ban was lifted, we were finally able to distribute the final dividend for 2019. For 2021, we're proposing a EUR 0.61 dividend per share. In addition, as you heard in February, we've announced our first program for share buybacks. We've completed about three-quarters of that program. We made good progress on our non-financial targets. The market share in new mortgages increased from 14%-16%. One point of consideration remains customer satisfaction score, also known as NPS. Especially in the first half of this year, it was under pressure, impacted by the expected but nonetheless negative sentiment concerning the settlement with the prosecution, the closure of branches and price increases for our customers. We are and remain committed to improving our customer satisfaction scores and aim to continue improving it in the years ahead.
Diversity has been extremely important to me for years. Within the bank, the number of women in the sub top increased from 28% to 30% in 2021. That's good progress toward our 34% target by 2024. We're also trying to contribute to a more diverse and inclusive society through our products. The inclusive banking team addressed eliminating potential obstacles for certain customer groups in products and services. Finally, our sustainability targets saw good progress as well, which I'll elaborate on at agenda item two B. I'm going to wrap up. 2020 was once again a dynamic year marked by COVID, but nonetheless one of progress within the bank. We were able to dividend to you, our shareholders, once again. We aim to be a personal bank in this digital era and to make clear progress to that end.
ABN AMRO was back in the black in 2021, despite the ongoing pressure on interest income. We made more progress on non-financial targets. In addition, some members of the former Executive Committee left the bank. I'm grateful to them for their dedication to the bank and all their hard work. Looking at the first row, I see a very appreciated coworker, Christian Bornfeld, seated on the front row. Unfortunately, for reasons that were explained, Christian will be leaving our bank. Christian, I'm going to address you in Dutch. I know that you understand what I say. You were a driving force, an inspiration, an example to many throughout the bank. We're going to miss you personally, professionally, and as a coworker. We will deeply miss you, but we know that this is right.
I'd like to conclude by thanking my coworkers, over 19,000 of them. The past year has not been easy for any of us. Not for us, not for you. In circumstances that were at times very difficult in working from home, we collectively did our utmost to support our customers as best we could. I deeply appreciate this, and this gives me the utmost confidence in the future of this bank. Thank you very much for listening.
Thank you very much, Robert. Robert will be speaking again when we come on to speak about sustainability. It's a separate agenda item. He'll be talking about that too. Well, in fact, we're moving on to that agenda item now. I'd just like to start off by making some introductory comments before I ask Robert to go into it in more detail. Well, from now to 2030, let's face the fact that's less than eight years. Less than eight years. In that time, EUR 480 billion or so will be invested extra in Europe in order to restrict climate change. We expect half of this investment will be financed by banks and investors.
As a result of those investments, we'll all become less dependent on fossil fuels and the regimes, this is important, the regimes from which we purchase them will be less dependent on basic raw materials. Our habitat will improve, and we will look forward to a robust and viable economy in Europe. That is also what ABN AMRO wants to play an important role in and can play an important role in as a financial organization. Now, sustainability is more than just socially responsible business practice. It's also thinking about the interests of future generations and creating value for all our stakeholders, including you, shareholders. The bank is putting this into action by looking beyond our short-term interests and trying to have a sound eye on the needs of society in the medium term and long term.
The important questions that we'll be facing regarding the sustainability front in recent years are how to restrict climate change, how we should deal with the consequences of climate change in general terms, and what it all means for financial institutions such as banks in particular. Climate change will have an impact on almost every product and every service sold by ABN AMRO. It will have an impact on our customers, but also the bank as a whole and our staff. Now, because climate change is having greater and greater impact, we're getting more and more rules regarding reporting and material opportunities and risks. Investors must receive uniform and validated information about all substantive topics, and sustainability is one of them, and is becoming more and more a core matter.
This has an impact on the way in which we do our reporting about ABN AMRO's emissions and also those of the companies we finance and which we invest in on our clients' behalf. Now, we have got very clear sustainability targets, and those are part of the Executive Board's assessment. In the Supervisory Board, we have the responsibility of challenging day-to-day management to really put the, our policy and our strategy into practice as agreed. We in the Supervisory Board see the bank's task in the changeover from fossil fuels to sustainable energy as being very important. Now, you've had a chance to read the chapter on strategy, value creation, and performance and on sustainability risk in the annual report, and that sets out our sustainability strategy and targets.
It now gives me great pleasure to give Robert the floor again, and he'll be telling you a bit more about this issue.
Well, as I said before, sustainability and the purpose and strategy of the bank. Well, if you think about it, and let it sink in, banking better for generations to come. That's very much tied in with the question of sustainability. It's actually become one of our overarching ambitions. Now, we in the bank really focus on three topics in particular: climate change, the circular economy, and the social impact. The reason is that talking about climate change without actually talking about the social impact really has no point. The two are totally intertwined. The same applies, in fact, for the circular economy, because that too is part of contributing to climate change.
If northwestern European banks with more than 5 million customers can and must help in the energy transition, well, it's not an option, it's not a principle, it is a responsibility that all of us bear every day, and ABN AMRO is no exception. More than 99% of ABN AMRO's CO2 emissions are what are called Scope 3 emissions. They are created by our customers' activities. In order to achieve climate targets, we depend on a large extent to what our clients achieve in cutting their CO2 emissions. That's why our strategy is focused on motivating and helping our clients to make their business processes, property, and investments more sustainable. We expect to have our climate strategy ready in the course of this year. This is a responsibility of our new Chief Sustainability Officer, Maarten Terlouw. He reports directly to me.
Our target with our new climate strategy is to speed up the bank's activity on combating climate change and make it more intense. We will set up climate strategy reduction targets for 2030, but we'll also set targets for dates before that. In the meantime, of course, we're not going to be sitting on our hands. Where we can make a big impact is in our mortgage and property portfolio. That's roughly 60% of all our loan portfolio and of our assets. For that reason, when discussing mortgages and also having talks with business property clients, we talk about the issue of rendering property more low energy and future-proof, and also talking about financial opportunities for that. We've set ourselves a target to have all the property that we finance in 2030 must, on average, have an energy label A.
That will mean a huge reduction in CO2 emissions. At the moment, 18% of our properties has an A rating or above. Now, by setting these restrictions, what we call sustainable linked loans, which involve sustainability targets, we can make our companies more sustainable. We are one of the first companies in the world with a green bond. We also provide opportunities for our customers and our bank in this way, because as you know, according to the European climate plans. We've got a requirement of EUR 240 billion more euros a year. Sustainability is part of our customer acceptance process and part of talks that we carry out with existing clients. ABN AMRO's policy is to engage in talks with clients who don't yet meet our requirements. That is how we have the biggest impact.
If clients continue to disregard our rules, then we might decide to end our relationship with them. We made a strategic choice for Northwest Europe in August 2020, and to dismantle our corporate banking activities outside Europe. That's part of this. Although sustainability wasn't actually part of that target, it does mean an enormous reduction in our CO2, because this is particularly where the CO2-intensive clients are based, the oil and the gas sector. Our energy portfolio is quite small in scale, about 2% of all ABN AMRO loans. We do provide energy loans in Europe. Finally, we want to grow in renewable energy. Within our energy portfolio, it's our target to have doubled the share of sustainable energy in our portfolio to 45% of the 2020 value by 2024.
We can do that by reducing our loans on energy and gas, and this can bring us closer to the net zero scenario as set up by the International Energy Agency. Giving loans to oil and gas issues is not completely forbidden, but we will impose restrictions. We are focusing, for example, on those companies which are active in the energy transition and are achieving a reduction in their CO2 emissions. Now, the roughly EUR 210 billion that our clients have entrusted to us, we can be active in making a difference by investing sustainably. We provide our clients with a standard sustainable mandate. We started on that with EUR 4 billion in 2014. It's now EUR 43 billion for ESG customers. This is in line with the definitions of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.
As you know, constant and consistent measuring of these figures is essential here. Overall, by 2024, 36% of our loans and investments must be sustainable. In order to achieve this, together with our clients, we have set clear targets, and these targets will soon be incorporated into our climate strategy. It goes without saying that we're not excluding ourselves from this. Our own properties have a CO2 reduction target of 80% by 2025, compared with 2015 levels. In addition, ABN AMRO was involved in a number of cooperative organizations in order to reduce CO2 emissions, to measure them and to report on them. Our bank, for example, is one of the founders of the platform Carbon Accounting Financials. This is an initiative where financial institutions have developed a uniform, open source, and transparent method for setting and measuring CO2 targets.
We are one of the signatories of the Poseidon Principles. The target of banks which have signed up to this principles is to make a contribution to reducing shipping emissions. The second pillar in ABN AMRO when we're talking about sustainability is the circular economy. The COVID crisis has given us a very new look on our consumer activity. More and more customers are choosing circular products, and more and more businesses are switching to circular production. This means that circularity is becoming more and more normal and is bringing us closer and closer to a society without waste and without excess, which is what circularity is all about. Countless companies around the Netherlands are working on initiatives contributing to the circular economy. ABN AMRO supports these companies with advice, networking, and financial solutions.
We have a system where we bring companies together and provide constant advice provision to these customers. Since 2019, we've provided more than EUR 1 billion to more than 140 circular deals and more than EUR 370 million in 2021. Our final pillar here is the social impact. As Tom said a moment ago, as a bank, we play a key role in society, and that means that we have a society to help people who are vulnerable. Banking is all about people, isn't it? Particularly in the current times, climate change, COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, and the geopolitical tensions that all this brings with it. We are very aware of the urgency of the ESG or the S in ESG.
In broad terms, from human rights to budget coaches for clients who get into debt difficulties. We're also working on making our products and services in the bank itself more diverse and inclusive. All across the bank, the social impact pillar is having our attention. There's one thing I'd like to focus on here. Our strategy is to be a personal bank in the digital age. We want our whole service to be provided remotely, online, if you like, this year. At the same time, we do not want to lose sight of those customers who need additional assistance with the development towards digital banking. There will always be people who find it difficult, who are insecure with it or even suspicious of it. People who still are not at all used to doing everything online.
Those people, those are equally good customers for us, and we therefore want to help them as much as possible to enjoy all the benefits of the computer age. For that reason, we've been talking to old people's associations, and we've invited them to take part in a client panel for elderly clients. We've got a significant number of financial coaches, many more than before, so that those customers who really can't cope with computerization can get support at home. They can be visited at home and can get help when they need it. In the end, they will therefore be able to carry on banking by themselves. We've now got 65 of these financial coaches. We expect to have at least 150 of them in 2022. That is another social impact.
In a nutshell then, with our knowledge and skills, we want to make a contribution to all the challenges of the current age. We're doing this with a route plan, with clear targets, and above all, with our head and with our heart. Mostly, I would say, with our heart. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much, Robert. As I said at the beginning a moment ago, we will always give the opportunity for everyone to ask questions on all these topics together when we get to the end of section two. I'd like to go through all the rest of section two first, then we will open the floor for questions.
in absolute-
No, no, no, no. Absolutely no doubt. As I said at the beginning of the meeting, we're going to go through all the subsections of agenda item two, and then we can have questions on remuneration, which is a separate agenda item, and that is available for an advisory vote. But at the end of agenda item two, you'll have ample opportunity to ask questions. Okay? Yes. Clearly, I didn't make myself clear, but I knew what I was trying to say, and I imagined you were going to ask that question. Okay, then. Well, thank you very much, Robert. That was a very interesting presentation of our sustainability strategy, which is, of course, of the greatest importance.
Now on to item 2C , the report from the supervisory board over 2021. You'll find the detailed version in the 2021 annual report, and I will provide a brief discussion of it here. As I'm sure you understand, as Robert explained in his introduction. In 2021, the supervisory board also focused greatly on how the bank dealt with COVID. At every meeting, we addressed it, including interim meetings, especially the consequences for our customers, as well as the consequences for staff and the bank. Luckily, we were able to continue all our services throughout COVID, and the bank managed very well throughout the crisis, and we hope that will remain the case.
We devoted extensive consideration to open communication, which is all the more important now that so many coworkers are working from home and are hardly able to come to the office. We don't expect this to remain as extreme as during the COVID lockdowns, but we do expect an ongoing change in which staff will be working increasingly from home and will divide their weeks between working from home and working at the office. That's why open communication is very important. We need to guarantee this for our staff. It's important to express our gratitude here for the immense flexibility of the staff throughout that period. Quite honestly, it's often very difficult to work in complete seclusion from your coworkers or to communicate with your coworkers on screen only.
I think that the supervisory board believes that the staff had an extremely flexible disposition throughout this period. Obviously, each quarter we discussed progress on strategy implementation concerning digital and data and the importance of our digital services and products for customers. Other topics on the supervisory board agenda included the anti-money laundering that consistently figured high on the agenda, scaling back our CIB non-core operations, and especially focusing on our customers. We are a customer-focused organization, so the supervisory board focuses extensively on how we interact with our customers. Another topic that we discussed various times concerned sale and leaseback of this building. We received several updates about the sale process, which culminated in success shortly before the end of the year.
The ABN AMRO settlement with the Public Prosecution Service was obviously an important topic of discussion between the executive board and the supervisory board in 2021. As you know, we accepted the settlement of EUR 480 million because the bank did not do enough in its role as gatekeeper in preventing money laundering. Prior to the settlement, at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, ABN AMRO had already decided to centralize its anti-money laundering operations and to invest in what we call DFC, Detecting Financial Crime. At this time, about 20% of our staff is engaged in organizing these cases, and we've made clear agreements with the regulator about this. The supervisory board also continued to improve risk management at the bank and make it fit for the future.
Changes in senior management and the supervisory board were also considered. As the supervisory board, we consider it to be our duty to challenge management to implement the agreed policy and strategy. These topics figured high on the agenda of the supervisory board in exercising supervisory duties throughout 2021. The four supervisory board committees: Audit Committee, Risk and Capital Committee, Selection and Nominations Committee, and Remuneration Committee also discussed a wide variety of topics, in part to prepare meetings and decision-making by the supervisory board. In addition to intensive discussions about progression and financial results in light of COVID-19 and the low interest rates, the Audit Committee under the aegis of Jan Tiemstra also discussed the internal audit organization.
Bank-wide risk reports and funding and capital plans were important topics for the Risk and Capital Committee. In addition, the Risk and Capital Committee was frequently informed by the Detecting Financial Crime department that I just mentioned regarding progress on the anti-money laundering recovery programs. The Selection and Nominations Committee was engaged in succession procedures and talent and leadership development, as well as simplifying the ABN AMRO organization and management and structure. Finally, the Remuneration Committee advised the Supervisory Board regarding remuneration for new Executive Board members and discussed diversity and inclusion and the future of introducing fixed equal pay. The Supervisory Board maintained contact with various stakeholders throughout the year, including De Nederlandsche Bank, the European Central Bank, the AFM, the STAK AAB, ABN AMRO, and the NLFI.
That was my elaboration on the report of the Supervisory Board, and I'm going to introduce 2D, which is the presentation by the Employee Council, and I'm pleased to give the floor to Arlene Bosman, Chair of the Employee Council.
Ladies and gentlemen, we currently face events that affect the whole world. We've had the COVID-19 crisis for a few years, and for the last two months, we've also had the war between Russia and Ukraine. It's hard to grasp how huge the impact of those both will be on our society, our economy, and all our lives. That before I even get started on the lives of future generations, they will probably face even greater impacts. Now, at the beginning of the pandemic, we faced the hope that we might be able to build the world back better because we'd be able to change things in a sustainable way in order to avoid a future pandemic. Well, I haven't heard much more about that lately. There have been some changes. For example, we're not driving around so much, but that's not enough.
Do we realize how vulnerable the world is? The energy transition is going too slowly as we see it. We don't need to hear from the environmental pressure groups for that. Many of my colleagues want to make a contribution to our sustainability ambition. 95% of them are in favor of the sustainability targets. Sustainability is a constant topic when we just have talks with our clients, and we as a company do what we can to reduce our footprint. How can we move things along faster? Well, it's possible that the war in Ukraine is making us more aware of how dependent we are on fossil fuels and will encourage us to switch more swiftly from Russian gas to sustainable energy sources. Otherwise, our children will soon be having to move house to higher altitudes because the Netherlands will be underwater.
It's not the 11th hour, it's the 55th minute. The IPCC report at the beginning of this month said the same thing. One way or another, there is no time to lose. The government can't waste any time, neither can individuals, and neither can companies. Two weeks ago, we had a pre-board meeting. This is an annual event where the executive board, the supervisory board, and the executive council get together to talk about a current topic. This time we talked about the climate transition. We all know that this is a huge challenge. We want to meet our climate targets. It's a challenge for the bank and for our clients. Don't let us forget that it also provides major opportunities because a sustainable society requires another way of thinking and working, and the bank can be active in that.
The question is: how should we be active? Do we keep to the well-trodden road and make sure that our clients abide by government regulations on sustainability? Or do we think outside the box and set out new paths by acting at this early stage to respond to the forthcoming new sustainable economy and go further above and beyond the rules themselves. That doesn't mean to say that in the meantime, there's no positive progress happening within the bank itself. The purpose of these changes is a customer who's been helped and is happy, is staff who are motivated and cooperate well in a successful bank with ambitions for a sustainable future. A great many efforts have been made in the last year in order to adapt our organizational structure, and we are still working flat out on that.
A great many members of staff are uncertain about the future of their jobs. We back this change to a new service model. At the same time, we can see how hard it is for members of staff. The approach to this new service model is very demanding on all of us. Our day-to-day work has to continue, while at the same time you're not sure about your own individual future on the staff. The staff council is very keen to make sure that as many people as possible can retain their jobs and be retrained. We can also see the hard word is being stated about inappropriate behavior. We fully agree with the executive board that inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated within ABN AMRO. However, sometimes it's a bit of an open secret if someone abuses a position of power.
The Employee Council will keep an eagle eye on this. As I said at the beginning, there's a lot of things happening in the world, and we don't yet know what the consequences of the war will be for all our stakeholders. What's going to happen to the share price? What does this mean for our customers' financial situation? What does it mean for the company's financial results? Is there going to be leeway for wage rises, or should I say, in fact, for a inflation correction in the collective bargaining agreement? Finally, what is the impact on society going to be? Let us hope that we together can shoulder our own responsibilities and make great steps towards the energy transition. That way we're at least doing something that future generations will benefit from in accordance with our purpose, banking for better for generations to come.
Thank you very much, Arlene. Thank you very much for all the excellent work that you've been doing as chair of the Employee Council. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'd now like to go on to agenda item 2 E, corporate governance.
In the leadership and governance chapter of the annual report, you'll have found an extensive discussion of ABN AMRO's corporate governance structure. In 2021, we simplified our organizational structure. Three client units are organized around the customer segments, corporate banking, wealth management, and personal and business banking. They have replaced the four former business units. The supervisory and executive boards, given the scope of the bank and in light of the strategy revision, have decided to focus on Northwest Europe. To simplify our organizational structure in 2021, we decided to abolish the executive committee and expand the statutory board. To this end, we are pleased to welcome Joy van der Hooft-Cheong, CCO Wealth Management, Dan Dorner, CCO, Corporate Banking, and Gerard Penning, Chief Human Resources Officer, as members of the executive board from November 24, 2021. Annerie Vreugdenhil, CCO.
You didn't think I'd forget you, did you? CCO, personal and business banking on March 1, 2022. As of that same date, November 24 last year, the executive committee ceased to exist. The former executive committees, Daphne de Kluis and Rutger van Nouhuijs, stepped down in 2021. The employment agreements with Pieter van Mierlo and Frans van der Horst will come to an end in the course of 2022. Christian Bornfeld, as we mentioned briefly in the introduction, has mentioned that he will be stepping down as board member and CITO on May 1, , 2022. Recruitment and selection for the vacancy of Christian is in progress and is progressing well. In the 2021 annual report, ABN AMRO accounts for how it met the Corporate Governance Code in 2021.
ABN AMRO complies with all stipulations of the corporate governance code, except for the provisions described in the corporate governance codes and regulations chapter in the 2021 annual report. In addition, on our website, you will find a detailed description of how the bank applies the corporate governance code. This concludes 2E. I will now move on to 2F. That is the remuneration report for 2021. I'm referring to the report as included in the 2021 annual report and added as a separate meeting document. I'm pleased to hand over to Arjen Dorland, Chairman of the Remuneration Committee and deputy Chair of the Supervisory Board, to walk you through it.
Thank you very much. Well, at last year's annual meeting, ABN AMRO presented the remuneration report for 2020 for an advisory vote and more than 99% of voters were in favor. We noted this and have built on this further in producing the remuneration report for the past year. In 2021, there were no alterations to the remuneration policy of the Executive Board or Supervisory Board. As long as the Dutch state is a shareholder in ABN AMRO, there can be no variable remuneration made available to members of the Executive Board. The Supervisory Board sets annual targets and KPIs with performance criteria for members of the Executive Board on the basis of financial and non-financial measurements such as organization, business line, and individual level, and the Executive Board is assessed according to them.
The criteria and targets are an important part of ABN AMRO's strategy and our long-term value creation. Considering ABN AMRO's results in 2021 were considerably better than in 2020, as Rob said a moment ago, the total amount of performance-related variable remuneration in 2021 was higher than in 2020. I'm mostly here talking about people working outside the Netherlands because the variable remuneration is often a very significant part of made up of bank staff remuneration outside the Netherlands, and there's also a very small number of specialized members of staff. This improvement was then offset by the settlement reached with the Public Prosecution Service, and this is specific to our activities in the Netherlands. It was therefore decided that this reduction should be applied to the variable remuneration as granted in the Netherlands.
In 2022, we've been talking to internal and external stakeholders to assess whether our policy and reporting can be brought better in line with our strategy and long-term value creation. In addition, I'm happy to say that our staff members remain 82% committed. What I really want to say is how very enormously we appreciate their dedication, as Rob said a moment ago, and we members of the supervisory board agree with that. Also, when it comes to diversity issues, looking at our Dutch CAO Plus population, the gender diversity of the extended leadership team has gone from 44% women to 47% women as of January 1, 2022. From March 1, 2022, our executive board has consisted of 37.5% women.
For much of 2021, the supervisory board was 43% women. In addition, in 2021, we received our first-ever Diamond Award for cultural diversity. This is awarded by the Talent to the Top Foundation. This prize is the recognition of the huge effort we've made in order to promote diversity. For ABN AMRO staff in the Netherlands, the gender pay difference between men and women is now down to 0.27% in men's favor. The overall gender pay gap not created by salary scale was 14.7% in 2021. ABN AMRO will continue to focus on increasing gender diversity at higher ranks of staff in order to overcome the existing gender pay gap between men and women. In 2021, we also had negotiations on the collective bargaining agreement.
Our collective agreement, which is both terms and conditions of work and the social plan, applies to the overwhelming majority of staff. Both the CAO terms and conditions and the social plan expired on January 1, 2022. We had extensive negotiations with the trade unions and agreed the terms and conditions for the period of January 1, 2022 to July 1 this year, particularly focusing on rules regarding hybrid working, welfare, and availability. Transport rules have also been brought up to date in order to reflect hybrid working and our sustainability strategy, and the social plan has been extended for a three-year period. The relationship between the annual average pay and that of the CEO has been calculated in accordance with the Corporate Governance Code Monitoring Committee.
External contractors are not included, and the ratio is 8.78% in 2021. In 2020, it was 10.2%. These ratios are regarded as being an honest reflection of the existing position in ABN AMRO. Finally, the auditor had a look to see whether the remuneration report is in line with the legal requirements, and that is the case. I therefore now give the floor back to you. Thank you.
As I already indicated at the start of the meeting, we will now start answering questions relating to the remuneration report for 2021. As noted, we will answer other questions after the next item on the agenda. As for the procedure, first, we'll take questions that we received in advance if they, if we received them relating to a specific agenda item. Afterwards, we'll give shareholders present the opportunity to ask questions. Finally, we'll ask any participants who are attending via the live chat will be able to ask their questions. Now, the questions put via the live chat will be moderated. Please ask only three questions at each agenda item to give everybody a chance to ask his or her questions.
No questions about the remuneration report were received in advance, so we can open the floor to questions about the remuneration report. Before you ask your question, please state your name for the minutes.
My name is Van den Bos. First, I'd like to say I think it is ridiculous that we've now gone through eight agenda items, hearing only from one side of the room. Next time we meet, can we please have questions available under each sub-agenda item? Because I think if you've got eight sub-items and three questions each, that would be we could have 24 questions asked each, three questions per sub-item. The issue I always talk about is the staff. The staff are not in talks with the shareholders. I come back to that again and again. Only at ABN AMRO. There's no other company where that's the case. Next time we meet, could we please delete that item? Because shareholders are not in talks with them. You are in talks with us. Mr.
Swaak, the trade unions, but not the shareholders. We could just all be in talks with the canteen staff. It's just no. It makes no sense.
Well, it seems to me that this was not a question, but a statement, but I'll be happy to respond to it. That was not a question, it was a statement. Very well, but I'll respond nonetheless. The fact that we're clustering these items is because we want to give the shareholders an overall comprehensive impression of where the bank stands and what we're working on. If we were to cover each item separately, we would be beating dead horses and answering the same questions over and over again. We think that we inform all shareholders best if we provide a comprehensive impression of ABN AMRO. Regarding the second item, I hope that you are alone in your view of the staff because you wouldn't be here as shareholders without the staff. The staff create value for our shareholders.
Simply excluding those staff from a dialogue with shareholders is putting the cart before the horse. That was your position. It wasn't a question. I just wanted to share my position with you.
Well, Mrs. Van, that didn't used to be normal at ABN, was it? Okay. I would just like to put the ball back in your court. Without the shareholders, there's no company and no employment.
That's why we're listening very carefully to what you have to say today.
A good thing, too.
Next question. Please go ahead. Please state your name and your question.
Good afternoon. My name is Robert Vreeken from We Connect You Public Affairs and Investor Relations. I'm very happy to see this very constructive approach and the very good results in 2021. What I didn't really hear is what your position is on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Perhaps I overlooked it. Perhaps you could be told that. Now, what about the Rome report, basically from 1972, that's talking about limits to growth and about polluting the world? We haven't done much about that for the last 50 years. We can now see 5% global warming. How is that going to happen? It's because the raw material-rich countries in the world, China, Russia, USA, et cetera, many of them are not particularly democratic and are not doing very much about the subject.
Perhaps the international network that ABN AMRO has could do more because we in the Netherlands perhaps could contribute 0.03% of global pollution. Regarding social network, well, it's a very good thing if we can start bottom up, because all that sustainability is EUR 50,000 per person. Whereas a lot of people in the lower level of society haven't got that kind of money. They can see their energy bills going up from EUR 200 to EUR 600. If you give them solar panels, rechargeable batteries and a circular shower which saves 80% water and gas, then that would be a small amount of money. If you buy 50,000 of those things, you would be helping people who really have no money.
Because for to go from EUR 200 to EUR 600 energy bill is a lot for people who are on low earnings. For medium earnings and higher earnings, well, we can set up all kinds of lovely heat pumps and ambitious programs. It's all very excellent, all that kind of project, but it's an awful lot of work and it's an awful lot of hassle. Regarding sustainability, well, what we could see the Postcode Lottery taking an action here. EUR 10 billion for millions of people who currently have no electric light can have light made available to them by money raised by the Postcode Lottery. That is a way of making the world more sustainable.
Next point I think is relevant, and it's diversity point, I think is very useful if it can be sustainable. In with the lawyers, GPs and communication, we can see that almost all the male members of staff have disappeared. That's not the point either. We've got to find a way of striking a balance in organizations. Finally, Artis is facing difficult times. Tom de Swaan is already involved in that. They're running a deficit of EUR 15 million. Perhaps Robert Swaak could make EUR 50,000 or EUR 100,000 a year to Artis, the zoo, in order to survive. Art. Well, ABN AMRO is involved in Ajax football team, but perhaps you could get involved in art as well. The TEFAF, the RAI here around the corner in Amsterdam, the first art fair at the PAN.
In order to provide assistance to Dutch artists, perhaps you could do more on that front. Those are my points at this stage. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Vreeken. This appears to bear little relation to the remuneration report. Could we perhaps associate your discourse with the minutes where we tend to talk about sustainability? Because I needn't ask any specific questions to the chair of the Remuneration Committee about this, and I propose that Mr. Swaak reply to your questions when we talk about sustainability.
Yes, if you like. I thought we were dealing with all agenda items together.
No, we're talking about questions concerning the Remuneration Report, but Mr. Swaan will include those in his answers about other items.
I've got a specific question on that as well. I'd like to know what are the peer banks or the peer financial institutions in the Netherlands or Europe or the world, so we can benchmark Mr. Swaak's earnings with what he's earning now and what he could be earning. I think he's on EUR half a million at the moment. Maybe it could be one or two elsewhere in the Netherlands. I think so.
I see him beaming. Arjen?
I'd just like to add something to that. I was one of the few people who thought that people at the top should earn a salary in accordance with the market, EUR 1 or 2. In Switzerland, people are getting EUR 11 million. It's all very nice to keep talent in the Netherlands.
Well, we did consider transferring the bank headquarters to Zurich, but we didn't get a majority to vote in favor of that. Now, regarding benchmarking, of course, but in our annual report, we're not going to describe what people make at other banks. You'll have to check their information. Mr. Swaak earns EUR 750,000 and change plus pension, so that gets him an additional EUR 290,000. Mr. Swaak is very happy, and we're subject to many restrictions because the bank is still partly state-owned. This policy was approved two years ago by the shareholders, so we're going to stick to that policy for the time being. As you can tell, he makes more than half a million. That's clear. Whether it's enough or deserves more, that's a different debate.
I need to use the microphone for people to hear me. Mr. Moderator, are there any questions from the live chat? There are no questions on the live chat about the remuneration report. Next, I would like to mention this is the first voting item on the agenda. As you know, we vote electronically. If you vote in favor of the agenda item, you support a positive recommendation. If you vote against, it means that you support a negative recommendation concerning the remuneration report for 2021. The result of the vote will then be the advisory non-binding vote. Now I expect to bring onto my screen the number of shareholders present here.
There are present 2,226 shareholders and depositary receipt holders, and they represent 750,173,079 votes, or 81.52% of the total votes. The total number of shares carrying votes on the record date changed because in keeping with the share buyback program, the ABN AMRO repurchased some of its own shares. The shareholders were notified of the total number via the portal. They were informed about the total number of shares carrying votes on the record date. Prior to the meeting, shareholders and holders of depositary receipts had the opportunity to exercise their right to cast a vote through e-voting. We still have to come up with a good Dutch term for e-voting.
These votes will be included in the electronic votes cast at this meeting and will be reflected when we post the voting results at the end of this meeting. As mentioned at the start, throughout the meeting, participants may cast their vote. At the end of this meeting, I will announce the result of the vote. That takes us to item 2G which is the presentation by the external auditor EY relating to their audit over 2021. I'm pleased to give Bernard Roeders from EY the floor on that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. I'm Bernard Roeders, and as of this year, I became ABN AMRO's external auditor on behalf of EY as of this year. In the following slides, I'll describe how we performed our audit and what our points of consideration were.
First, the scope of our duties, which is, of course, primarily the consolidated ABN AMRO financial statements, drafted subject to IFRS. In addition, we issue a certain statement concerning non-financial information in the annual report in the integrated report. Then we assess the financials and review various other figures such as those from the ECB. Each quarter, we have formal reviews with the executive board and the supervisory board. This slide shows the highlights of our 2021 audit, so the key audit matters as we call them. First, credit facilities, especially in 2021, the estimates concerning the consequence of the ongoing lockdown due to COVID. Next, the other provisions for compensation and compliance, including settling the settlement with the prosecution service. Third, the reliability and continuity of IT, including cybersecurity.
We also devoted special attention to strategy implementation by ABN AMRO, including the sale of some major loan portfolios, and we also considered the expansion of the explanation about climate and energy transition in the annual report. The main objective of our audit is to determine the accuracy level of the financial statements with the materiality of EUR 160 million based on 0.7% of equity. We distribute this among the teams involved in auditing the different business units of ABN AMRO domestically and abroad, each comprising auditors as well as specialists in areas such as IT, risk models, valuation, and regulation. Any discrepancies that exceed the threshold are communicated by us to ABN AMRO.
It's been mentioned extensively, but of course, COVID-19 was ongoing in 2021, which was cause for us to devote additional attention to the consequence of closing the offices and working from home on proper monitoring. In addition, we extensively considered the consequence of the pandemic on the level of credit facilities, and wherever possible, we did our work at the office, so physically on-site. Like last year, we had to use a lot of video conferencing and electronic data exchange. Now, the risks of fraud and non-compliance of legislation and regulation, these are important aspects in our audit, and we deploy our forensic specialists there. We address the policy principles and processes present with the bank, such as the Sharia compliance staff from compliance and security.
We also exercise our own observation through targeted analyses and line controls, and of course, the progress of the anti-money laundering recovery program has received consideration as has follow-up on other investigations. This year, we considered climate and energy transition more explicitly, both with respect to possible consequences for valuation of loans and for explanation in the annual report. The specific information such as CO2 reduction and the growth of sustainable loans was subject to separate audits. As for the review of taxonomies, we checked that consistently with the annual report. Now to wrap up, the outcome of all our duties was discussed with the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board through our management letter and auditor's report, and we also confirm our independence every quarter.
Ultimately, the outcome of our investigation led to an unqualified auditor's opinion, which has been attached to the financial statements, including the key audit matters stated. Once again, working with ABN AMRO was constructive and open, and that was my presentation.
The interpreters can't hear anything. The speaker is speaking without his microphone. The interpreters apologize. We can't hear anything. I do apologize. I beg your pardon. I'll start again. Well, as you're saying, we'll deal first with questions which were submitted by email in advance. That's the first thing. You don't need to sit down. Well, there's only one of those, and this is the question put forward by Mr. Sluis, and I'll read it out to you. "Expenses are being handed on to savers, although the expenses are actually the bank's own expenses. These are the bank's payments to the European Central Bank in return for storing money there, and they're not actually part of these expenses for savers."
Mr. Sluis wants to know what the bank is going to do, and whether the bank's decisions to pass expenses on to savers is going to be reversed now that the ten-year capital market is no longer negative. Robert, please.
Thank you for the question. As is known, individuals and companies have been saving more than ever. As it is also known, banks always have to maintain part of those savings at the ECB. When you do that, given the current interest rates, the negative interest rate means that banks pay the ECB for the monies deposited there. When customers deposit more money to banks that are no longer able to lend it reliably and responsibly, you need some compensation. That's what the negative interest is. It's unnatural, it doesn't feel right, and it's not what we all want, but that's the status of the negative interest. Of course, we are curtailing that to EUR 100,000 for no negative interest. That means that 97% of ABN AMRO's clients are not impacted by this measure.
That's the background to why negative interest is charged. As for what we'll experience in the future when the interest rates start rising again, we'll have to take that as it comes, and we'll have to see how ABN AMRO will deal with that. Obviously, I cannot anticipate changes in interest rates, but we are staying on top of that. Well, at the time that I wrote my question, I was not advised, but I wrote this up and submitted it to the Supervisory Board which tracks you personally. When I see that I wrote these questions, both technically and fundamentally, the interest rate was 0.807%, and now we're at 1.19% and a bit, then what you're asserting is inconsistent.
Because you say we have to pay negative interest, but there's no reason to continue charging that negative interest to people with savings accounts. Politics is an entirely different branch, and they'll be held accountable there. Why isn't the bank fighting this? Because that woman in Frankfurt, she can have her policy, but you have to pay interest and that's ridiculous because that's not going to decline. I've explained that it's based on the high inflation, rising costs of energy. In fact, energy costs will continue to soar and dependence on liquid gas is nice for investing in Shell. That aside, the prices continue to rise, as does inflation. Quite honestly, I'd like you to tell me if you disagree. I don't see the interest rates going back down again.
You're paying interest and you're charging the negative interest to those with savings accounts, and that's topsy-turvy. Well, it seems to me that the decision should be reversed, and the negative interest should no longer be charged to people with savings accounts because they're having a tough enough time with the government in The Hague.
Yes, perhaps I could just address this question on the negative rate. Well, these, this is tied in with ECB interest and savings rates. You're correctly pointing out what's happening around Europe. What I was saying a moment ago, the savings interest are connected to the rate, which are connected with current events in Europe. The long-term, 10-year interest and the mortgage interest, there is indeed an increase coming through. What we've got to do, and we will do, and what we did on the way down as well, we very emphatically followed trends in interest rates. We only introduced negative interest when that point came. The same applies to rate levels for the whole of the sector. We'll look to see what the interest rate situation is before we make another decision.
Take it from me, please, the way in which we were forced to push interest rates downwards will also apply once interest rates start coming back up again. In such a way that we as a bank will have to respond to outside events. That's what we will continue to do.
Well, the interest rate isn't going to go back down again. It's just going to rise.
Heather, I fully understand that you'd like to hear me saying what interest rates are going to do.
Well, it's fundamentally positive. It's not going back down again. The entire global economy is cause for this.
Well, the interest rates are still negative, as I said a moment ago. Our interest rates that we have to apply as our reference figure, the ECB deposit rate is still negative.
Isn't the 10-year interest rate, doesn't that prevail?
The deposit rate is what is important for us because we bank those with the ECB, and that, therefore, is what we have to use as our reference figure for calculating our own interest.
The policy interest rate that remains at 0%, is that cause?
I could read out a whole list of interest rates on all kinds of products and all kinds of notice periods, but it's the reference figure that is important. That is what we have to do.
If there is a positive development, you'll stop by charging the negative interest rate.
As soon as that reference figure changes, we will decide what to do. Yes, we've also received questions from the VBDO, Investors for Sustainable Development. Mr. Abma said rather, he's going to want to ask questions here. I see you're with us today, so I can see a question over here, and then you, and then you. Go ahead, please.
I'm Van den Bos. I'm going to get this down to G, starting with the auditor. That's always an intriguing topic. The story about how the auditor does his audit and approaches it was described yesterday. I was at the PostNL meeting. Basically, I heard 90% of Mr. Roeders' story. It was almost verbatim the same. It's just ticking the boxes. I have a question to Mr. Roeders. How many junior auditors participated in this line audit? Do you address only the reports from the internal audit? You mentioned checking the credits and loans very carefully. Well, I looked at the annual report very carefully, and I see a loan from Mr. Tom de Swaan. From Mr. Tom de Swaan, EUR 1.5 million, 1% interest rate. Mr.
Penning, nearly €400,000, I believe, at 0.7% interest. That's very low. I have not experienced that with the bank. My own mortgage as a triple-A debtor, I extended my mortgage, and the rate I got was 1.7%. The amount was, of course, much lower. I think 1% at €1 million, considering your age, I think that's an awful lot, especially 0.7% in interest. That's very low. I've got a question for the auditor about that. I'm sure he communicated that in the key audit matters. As for the management letter, does that reflect an increase or a decrease in observed emissions, subdivided in serious emissions and minor emissions? The most important point of all, for the auditor, how do you deal with the signals from the organization?
I should tell you that I know the auditor, Mr. Roeders. I know him. Especially from a prior ABN AMRO subsidiary, and I'm very curious how he responds to alerts from within the organization. That brings me specifically to another point that concerns interest rate adjustments applied to high interests of revolving credit facilities. How much did you set aside for that, and what are the labor costs on top of that? At present, those are my questions. I'll ask other questions at the next opportunity.
What? Yeah. Yes, please. Yes, there's a microphone at the lectern. If you'd go and answer the question there. Regarding your last question, the most important one, I think. I think if you look at the financial statements, you can see that we have put money aside for variable interests. I think it's EUR 350 million, just so off the top of my head. We looked extensively into this by the bank, indeed, and by us, and we, as auditors, think that that provision is reasonable. Of course, it's an estimate. Nobody knows how things are going to go in future. The amount might go up or down, but that has, at any rate, been earmarked for payment. Your next question, how many junior auditors have we got? We've got a very large team around the world, of course.
Most of the auditing takes place here. We've got 80 to 100 people working on auditing ABN AMRO on a quarterly basis. Those are the junior people. It's roughly half. Think in terms of about 140 people who work flat out auditing ABN AMRO. As I said, there are some specialists there and some general auditors, assessment auditors, risk model auditors who look at provisions and credits and so on. Lots of them. The management letter. Well, the number of items in the management letter is about the same as last year, and that is partly because our management letter is structured on a topic by topic basis. We have one on loan risks, we have one on IT, and so it goes on.
Now, each of those topics sees events happening, and we describe events, and we also describe our findings specifically. But it's not more than last year. Yes, indeed, we've paid a great deal of attention to reporting on climate risks. We heard about that earlier. That's a new side of reporting, and we always have something to say on that. The loan to Mr. de Swaan and Mr. Penning for that too. I can't actually remember how we audited that and what our findings were, but I imagine that the time period was also an important variable in deciding the interest rate. But yes. Perhaps my colleague can say something more on that. What is the time period? I realize, but I don't know whether it's a one-year loan or what.
I think that, ABN AMRO themselves are best positioned to answer that. Yeah, I've seen that piece of paper. I've seen that. Yes. Perhaps the chairman of the Remuneration Committee could answer. Would you have any objection to, Mr.-
Okay. Yeah.
Yes, yes, indeed. I just thought he'd gone through all the points. The interpreter can't hear the speaker from the floor.
I know Mr. Roeders from the past, and there is a deeper meaning there.
Well, yes, you alerted me to this, and we followed it up. Perhaps he didn't give it the follow-up that you hoped we would at the time. All alerts from the organization are taken very seriously by our team.
It cost a bank organization hundreds of millions EUR.
Now, you're talking about variable interest. You flagged that up to us, and we flagged it up, too.
Oh.
Mr. Bos. Could I suggest, please, if you want to have a debate with Mr. Roeders, you can do it after the meeting. The interpreters cannot hear the speaker from the floor. Mr. Adam Bos, if you have any comments, could I please ask you to stand behind the microphone? Because other people want to hear what you're saying. But we don't need to repeat the whole debate. Yeah. I think everyone heard what you said.
Everybody heard. I speak very loudly. Well, I say what's on my mind. What matters to me is not to badmouth Mr. Roeders. What matters to me is that nobody did anything with alerts. Because of this, that company, at that company, the interest rate problem was disclosed and accelerated like an avalanche as the derivatives trade, as you know about. This cost ABN AMRO at least EUR 350 million, at least. That's aside from labor costs, investigating it, reporting it. I'm overlooking that. All things considered, I would estimate that it cost about EUR 700 million.
You were asking Mr. Roeders, and I think Mr. Roeders has answered. You asked whether he responded to the alert.
That's the entire point. That's what I'm talking about. He responded vehemently because on interest alone, banks spend about EUR 1 billion.
Perhaps we could ask Mr. Roeders to respond to that, and then we can move on to the next speaker from the floor, so they can ask their question. Mr. Roeders. Yes, for the 2012 and 2013 situation. Well, at that point, yes, of course, we noted what was happening, and we did already know about the situation. But in light of what the situation was back then and what we knew about things back then, we looked into it, but it didn't have any direct impact on compensation. There are a lot of players involved. There's a lot of legal cases involved. You flagged this issue up. We most certainly responded, but we didn't immediately establish a reserve because that didn't seem appropriate at that time. Well, I understand you might disagree with our decision, but that's what we did at the time. Yes, thank you.
Now, the next speaker, please. Go ahead, madam.
I'm Shan de Bakker on behalf of the VBDO, Association of Investors for Sustainable Development, aiming to make the capital market more sustainable since 1995, in part by asking questions at shareholders' meetings. I have three questions, and I submitted them in advance. The first concerns biodiversity. We're delighted that the ABN AMRO has joined these important initiatives concerning biodiversity, such as the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge. Regarding biodiversity in the ABN AMRO's sustainability risk policy, we see that the ABN AMRO engages in dialogue about sustainability risks with all new customers. Can ABN AMRO commit to provide greater disclosure of its engagement process with existing and new customers concerning biodiversity?
Are both groups screened and monitored for activities that might negatively impact biodiversity and possibly excluded to match ABN AMRO's own sustainability objectives and purpose, for example, companies that take insufficient measures to exclude negative effects?
Yes, you're quite right. The biodiversity is becoming a more important topic for the bank, and I think you will have seen in our impact report how we currently report on biodiversity. You've seen current activity trends regarding our clients, how we embody biodiversity into our own policies, how we bring it on board in talks with our clients, and how we do it when onboarding due diligence for our clients. Now biodiversity can no longer be seen as being quite different from anything else, such as climate change and so on. It's also important to recognize that we are the only bank which speaks and reports on biodiversity at this extent and to this scale. I think that'll be continue to be the case. You can see the choices we're making regarding biodiversity data.
We are looking at the impact of biodiversity on our climate strategy. Please rest assured we are working hard on it, but we haven't finished the job yet.
Engaging, we'd like to see you report more specifically on your engagement with new and existing customers. Now, the VBDO favors ABN AMRO's diversity policy and active disposition toward employees. In the annual report, the ABN AMRO reports the gender wage gap for 2021, and regarding the objective of ABN AMRO to reduce the gap between remuneration for men and women to zero, when does ABN AMRO expect to report about this wage gap for various sections of the organization, and are different marginalized groups included in this report as well?
Okay. I can be very brief on that. You're absolutely right. This is an important issue for ABN AMRO. We've carried out our first round of reporting on it. The next reporting will come out in November 2022. Now, exactly what form that report will take, we'll have to see when the time comes. We will certainly carry on working on this issue in detail.
Reporting on more than simply gender.
That's what we're looking at, yes. There's also the AVG, the privacy legislation. Now, people have to be willing to provide their data, and not everyone wants to provide their data, the GDPR rules. We can't. We can only work with the data that we've got. Our policy is going to be continued and seen through. Whether we'll be able to report on every detail as fully as we might want to, I just can't say, but we are looking into the issue.
My final question is about your purpose. It's been mentioned a few times already. The VBDO has noticed that ABN AMRO has apologized for its involvement in slavery in the past, and we're pleasantly surprised at this study, which shows that you cannot disassociate the present from the past. Now, that leads to my question about ABN's purpose, banking for better for generations to come. ABN is engaging with current challenges for the future. How does the ABN AMRO check whether its operations do in fact match its purpose and benefit the lives of future generations?
Well, it's a highly topical question, particularly as regards to the generation issue, and I can assure you we are in active talks with the younger generation in the bank. They are calling upon us to test any decision we might make against our purpose. This is discussions we've been having. I can assure you that in the Executive Board's decision-making, we already agreed that particularly when we make decisions regarding the future, we explicitly bring young people involved. We are talking about the future generations. We've also said that we want to have words with each other, not only talking about what you might call the younger generation in the bank, but as you know, there's several generations in our bank, and we don't want to just lose sight of all the other generations.
We're talking inclusive way of looking at generation-based issues within the bank. If you permit it, I would take your question on board and say it's not only talking about younger generations, we're also talking about all the other generations. We are in talks about this to see how you can make decisions in these things and how we can be consistent.
What we also notice is that the junior board member was born in 1976, the youngest one, and I believe that that's a missed opportunity for the ABN AMRO to involve the younger generations in decision-making. Aside from these conversations, what do you do to involve young people in governance?
I'd probably say that, age is unlimited. There's no minimum, no maximum age.
For example, many pension funds offer young people the opportunity to serve on the board. There are quite a few traineeships at present.
Yes. Well, we're looking at every layer of management to look at knowledge and skills and the capacity of our people already on board for various tasks. Age is basically not essential. What we're talking about is how suitable a candidate is for the job. We are getting youngsters involved. We've got this young bankers project. We have talks with a number of groups inside the bank. We're in talks with them. We explain our strategy to them. We answer their questions. We address topics which are important to those generations. We make sure that the management climate in ABN AMRO is inclusive. That means that you really take full account of diversity. Whether you talk about leadership team or the broad teams, or whether you're talking about Executive Board or leadership in a broader sense, we are talking about diversity.
I can assure you all aspects of diversity are taken on board. We are in active talks with younger generations within the bank, and we do bring them on board in ABN AMRO's decision-making. Staffing, I assure you, takes account of diversity. Next speaker, please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I'm Gerben Everts of the VEB. Subject to the risk that old topics were put on the agenda consecutively, I might make a chronological mistake, but I'll start with the external auditor. I'm delighted that the external auditor is present here. That's well embedded in the Netherlands, but not enough questions are presented to the external auditors. Mr. Van der Bos did the same just before me. I strongly support this, and I believe that I have an important question, especially in light of ABN AMRO. We're talking about that fraud section. There is a fraud section in the auditor's opinion, but this concerns the added value of the fraud paragraph, which in our view concerns the company-specific explanation at the accountant to focus the findings on the audited firm, which in this case is the ABN.
I'm not sure whether the auditor helped design the annual report, especially the financial statements, but that's very transparent and is integrated with sustainability aspects. The risk paragraph looks excellent to me. Last year I had to search for very relevant information. I found it hidden, and this year we hope to see it, but we'll need the external auditor to help us there, especially with respect to the fraud section. Of course, last year ABN AMRO had an issue concerning anti-money laundering. What we wonder is, does this issue specifically address know your customer anti-money laundering, or could this lead to fraud risks throughout the organization? That's why my question to the auditor is as follows: EY does not reveal which fraud risks it acknowledged. My question is, which were those? Which fraud risks have been acknowledged?
What were the findings of the accountant with respect to the fraud risks and what's been asserted is management override of control. Our question is, which higher risks has EY specifically selected based on which they were able to say, "Ultimately we will issue an unqualified auditor's opinion"? That's a question to the auditor.
Well, thank you for your questions. In our statement, we said more about risks of fraud than we did last year. I hope you're pleased to see that. We tried to make it more specific to the bank. Well, I could read out what it says, but I don't think there's any need to. We mentioned a number of specific things of relevance to the bank and things we have to focus on for fraud. There's a great deal of money transactions. There's always a risk there of internal and external fraud. The bank has got a fairly strong framework for fraud risk. In other words, on policy focus points, compliance, safety issues, security issues. There's all of that system is already there in the bank, keeping an eye out for fraud, and we make use of that too. I'd like to emphasize that.
Indeed, the statement mentions that. Specific fraud risks we did talk about. That was one of your questions. One of them was management override. You described that yourself. The management override is particularly relevant when dealing with loan reserves. That's rather a subjective item. There's a high risk there that the board of a bank might try to massage the figures to make them look a bit better or worse. We looked at that extensively. We always give a great deal of attention to credit facilities anyway, and we think about how is there no override taking place there? Could anyone higher up be able to do anything like this? All of those aspects are taken into account. You're asking what items we look at all the way through our auditing activities. We filter them. We have tools to address them.
We look at those issues one by one. Obviously, we look at materiality to see whether there's anything unusual, anything eye-catching coming through the system. That's the kind of thing we keep an eye on. I don't know whether that answers your question, really.
Your reply suggests that you have no findings that were not made transparent by ABN AMRO. That's the case, that's good enough.
Look, if there really is material fraud, then it'll be discussed in the financial statements and the statement. Auditor statement, you mentioned that. Yes, indeed. AML, you mentioned. We mentioned that in our statement this year and last year. Now, AML needn't be fraud. It's more a question of non-compliance with legislation. Of course, and this is part of the bank's whole fraud framework, there is constant scrutiny of legislation to make sure we keep up with this. They don't make the same kind of mistake as they made with AML. Both the bank and we pay attention to abiding by legislation.
I think, too. Thank you for your reply. Two very brief reflections on this that provides a bit more transparency. Thank you for that. At the same time, it shows that in-control statement exceeding the main leverage risks and issues in the Netherlands, such as with the monitoring committee. Given that it would help the auditor to know that management has complied with all legislation and regulation. That's basically what I'm sharing with you now, so that an auditor, based on that statement, could also provide more certainty concerning the fraud risk, which is a subject of debate within the professional organization of the auditors. Hopefully next year, we'll be able to receive answers about which fraud risks existed.
This supports the VEB's assertion that these two matters are necessary for the firm and the auditor to obtain additional assurance concerning the reporting and the fraud risks. Yes. We understand that. May I take this opportunity to ask you some questions as well? First, I was confused as to when questions could be asked because I'd like to talk about sustainability and financials all at the same time. You added some other topics. I don't object. I agree entirely with you that sustainability is the most important topic for generations to come, but it's also the responsibility of the current and future generations to progress there. We see that at ABN AMRO, so congratulations on that. We have several questions.
First, we hope that the Ministry of Finance will soon believe the time has come to restore ABN AMRO to the shareholders, and the share price fluctuations are neatly described in the annual report. As for the prospect of higher interest rates, the VEB believe that that's an excellent opportunity to sell the 56% shares held by the state. Investors also wonder which opportunities and challenges ABN AMRO envisages to drive top-line growth because it's lagging behind a bit. I have some questions about that. Specifically, commission income do seem somewhat promising. We have some questions about that later on, too. What we note is that the net promoter scores, so concerning customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, is less promising. Finally, we'd like to know whether the ABN AMRO intends to make any acquisitions.
First, I'll ask three questions about top-line growth. The interest environment seems to be changing. We read all about that in the newspapers, and that should be a good trend for ABN AMRO. Nonetheless, the bank expressed concern in the analyst call in February that it expects almost no tailwind as a consequence of the rising interest rates in the next two years. For the time being, the bank expects the positive income at only EUR 25 million, which is not much. Do you still stand behind that prognosis from early February? Next, these interest rate developments should benefit banks, but we see inflation across the board in companies and households, and this combination could also lead to bad news for the bank in the sense of bankruptcies, increased impairment, and higher default rates.
What outcome does the bank see with a higher interest rate margin or versus the higher risk of defaulting on the other hand? My second question about top-line growth is that the bank is incurring significant costs, as we heard, with respect to anti-money laundering and know your customer that do not generate any proceeds except for having an organization that is above the board. By now, one out of every five staff is working on this. We understand this after last year's huge penalty. Nonetheless, the DNB's docile disposition has been subject to lawsuits. We at the VEB also hear many complaints from our constituents about pointless questioning by all banks, including ABN AMRO.
When can the bank scale back and transition to more sophisticated risk-driven supervision of these aspects so that the true bad guys are identified rather than placing loyal customers in the dock. We're worried that that anti-money laundering project will become permanent. The ABN AMRO projects that remediation require more effort as we read in the annual report, and this deployment will last until at least 2023. Is the progress slower than initially expected, or is there light at the end of the tunnel? That takes me to my final question. The third one. The cost income ratio. Last year it was 66% cost versus some income versus costs. That's really high when you see that the bank is retreating from riskier segments and becoming increasingly digitized or should be. I would expect that ratio to decline at ABN AMRO.
Nonetheless, we see ongoing increasing costs by 10%, so exceeding 76%. Of course, this deeply impacts profitability. Is this a one-off to catch up with backlog, or does the bank expect that unlike the previous strategy, they'll be unable to cut costs drastically? Not disregarding the huge inflation figure that we just heard and high employment, but ultimately everything needs to be a good business model, especially if you want to have an IPO. How can we reverse this trend? Those are my questions.
Thank you very much. Questions, interest rate, vulnerability, and so on. Robert, go ahead, please. Well, yes, interest exposure is indeed something that we spoke about towards the end of last year. A question of our various aspects of our interest income, which is tied, of course, to interest rate trends. We currently see interest rates heading upwards, and we could see that showing through in our top line, in our interest income. Now, of course, we still got fairly low mortgage interest, so you don't see a one-to-one match. This partly because on the deposit side, you've got lower interest levels, which will continue to apply to the bank's deposits side. Secondly, the loans issued in recent times have also been issued on the basis of low interest. Those two factors together means that the sensitivity is there to lower interest.
As you quite correctly said, if we look at the interest rates on the first of January, what impact will that have on interest increases this year? There's EUR 25 million at that point. Well, at that point, and with those circumstances, we also said that if the interest rates rise over the years in the plural, then the bank will benefit. The periods of time period we're currently looking at, we can see there is this, well, this shortfall on interest income. We're addressing that by focusing on volumes. Volumes, you can see both commercial and corporate side. There would've been a significant increase there in the period under discussion. When it comes to mortgages, of course, we're focusing particularly on volumes in the mortgage market to see what we can still achieve because of ABN AMRO's important position. We're heading forward on that.
We're carrying on with volumes, so making sure we can continue if circumstances don't change. We've got to look at the probability of our tariff incomes. The fees that we managed to collect in the last year. You can see that increasingly we are able to get benefits from our credit card company because the people are simply trading more. We can also see in our clearing operations that we've managed to get good results, activities in the private bank, where we've benefited from the market situation. On the one hand, and in Q1, we'll be able to give you more information about that. What exactly is our interest rate exposure? You can look at a number of scenarios there. We continue to focus on the segments we've identified, the ones that we know that ABN AMRO has natural strengths.
Make ourselves less dependent on interest rates by continuing to extend flexibility for our fees. That is the top-line story, if you like. You correctly said something about the cost income ratio. Perhaps I could invite you to consider that we have had a remarkable year. We've had to reach settlements with the authorities. Now, our guidance for 2021 is EUR 5.3 billion. That was EUR 5.1 billion 2020 and EUR 5.3 billion in 2021. Particularly, we're looking at our own guidance. How do we achieve our own guidance
This is part of cost control because at the same time, in the model, we managed to see if we can achieve our cost guidance and if we can continue to achieve a cost guide in accordance with our ambitions, that will have an impact on profitability in 2024. We still are confident that 5.3% from the past year will be heading downwards in the coming year. You can gradually see the impact of the steps we've taken working through in the organization. We're working flat out on cost control. You were talking about remediation and AML. If I say with hundreds of millions EUR to be paid, and as you can see certainly that a lot of staff were involved, and we are in a learning process, and the organization is also learning from this.
That is why we have chosen to really work on a really sound end to the story. I think that by 2023, we will have what we require. That's the way we see it at the moment, and that's why I expressed it in the annual report in those terms. Your general question, when you said, "Is this an ongoing situation?" Well, we don't think it's going to be permanent because little by little, the technology that we use and the skills you learn can be developed further and further, so we will be able to make better and better use of computerization. Artificial intelligence is relevant here. In the long term, we expect those costs to go down, and we said that in the guidance for the coming year. It's not a sustainable level for future years.
We do expect it to come downwards.
I have a brief question and two comments to support it.
Could I please ask you to be brief? 'Cause there's a number of other people wishing to speak, 'cause, please, could I ask you to be very, very brief so other people can speak as well.
To what extent is the growth in private banking because of the market increasing or is it new inflow, especially with net promoter scores that are not wonderful everywhere? Please tell me more about that. Two brief remarks. One is that curtailing costs is very important in our view. Last year, we saw no profit. This year, we did see some profit, so we thought that some costs had been moved forward. Please continue curtailing costs. Regarding anti-money laundering, I understand that under pressure of a penalty and a regulator you do things that you may wonder whether they're necessary. In this case, we at the EB are truly wondering whether the method that's being imposed. Is that right?
Because there are questions from people who may have had an account for 30 years at the bank and are being probed. I realize that you've got De Nederlandsche Bank breathing into your neck, but use digitization and try to make that supervision much smarter, and it'll save a lot of costs for shareholders.
Okay. There's one question on private banking. The rest of that, I think, was the statement of your opinion rather than a question. Yes, we're currently looking at net new assets and the combination of new clients and the advantages we already had from the market was coming through last year. Next speaker, please.
Hello, I'm Ronald Atma. I live in Amsterdam. I'm a concerned dad and a concerned shareholder. My concerns relate to climate change and the severe consequences that they may have for life and well-being of my daughters, as well as the economic consequences of ABN AMRO. Despite all your fine words, ABN AMRO is not taking enough climate measures. The ruling in the Shell case reveals that. The court has asserted that each company needs to make a considerable effort to reduce emissions by customers. That means that the ABN AMRO shares responsibility for emission due to polluting activities financed by ABN AMRO. ABN AMRO is seen as one of the largest polluters of the Netherlands. This is because of financing fossil fuel and other polluting activities. I have two questions. First of all, according to Mr.
Richard Kooloos, Director of Sustainability, ABN AMRO has been asking since January 1, 2018 for a transition plan concerning CO2 emissions from some of its customers if they want to do business with the bank. What percentage of this group did in fact submit a transition plan, and what percentage of such transition plans are in compliance with the Paris Agreement? What were your requirements with respect to these plans, and what are the consequences for these customers if they have submitted no transition plan or one that scores below par, and how many customers have you rejected for that reason?
Yes. I keep forgetting to press the microphone button. Anyway, we fully share the concerns you expressed regarding the climate. As I tried to say in my introductory presentation, we are ahead of schedule. We are planning to publish our climate strategy by the end of the year. As I said, all aspects and all steps that the bank is taking on the climate front will be there under one single heading. I'm not going to go through them all here today. We'll also say how we are going to achieve our ambitions on the climate front. What do you say, Mr. Kooloos? Well, I wasn't at those talks, but so I don't know. But what we do, we have an intake conversation with our clients, and the energy transition is always part of our talks with them.
We see how they can and want to speed things up on the sustainability front in our sectors. On the basis of that, we prepare our own service range. We're in constant talks with our clients regarding transition. It's important to recognize that we've got a number of questions. You've got a number of systems that we deploy for this in order to ask our clients questions, and we follow this up. That's part of ABN AMRO's services. As far as I know, we don't ask every client for their own climate plan. No, we are working flat out on defining our climate strategy, and that's what we beta test, of course. We want to ask the
First we ask the client about their ambitions on the climate front, and then we follow things up as we wish.
Thank you. I have a second question. In January, Milieudefensie asked ABN AMRO to submit a climate plan. You submitted an existing plan without any amendments or adjustments, and you say that by the end of this year, you'll be able to submit a new plan. My question to you is, how great is your ambition to generate that new plan according to the directive from the Paris Agreement? You also mentioned that this would relate to the emissions of your customers.
Well, let me start off by saying that when we publish our climate strategy, you will be able to see that it is very much in line with the pressure group Milieudefensie's own ambitions. You'll see that it's. We not only take their guidelines, but we also think things over ourselves. The reason why we're proceeding in this way, well, we signed the National Climate Agreement, so that imposes obligations on ourselves. That means you've got to have a climate strategy. We are going to provide it before the end of 2022, as agreed, and there you will see how we are formulating our objectives. As I said a moment ago, what Milieudefensie wants is also what we want. We agree with the pressure group. There's not much daylight between us. I just want to make that very clear.
We will be coming up with our TR strategy soon. Could I please ask you to be as terse as possible? Because we've been doing questions for a long time now, and I really do hope that at some point we can go on to agenda item 2 H. Go ahead, please.
Yeah.
No, I do realize you've got an awful lot more questions outstanding, haven't you?
Yeah, okay. Go ahead, please.
Thank you. I'm Smede Arison. I represent NTrak here, and I have a few questions about your, about BankTrack's, or rather ABN AMRO's oil and gas policy. My question is about the assertion that financing exploration of operations in the oil and gas sector is no longer carried out by ABN AMRO, but that the companies are not subject to this. Research by the German NGO Urgewald shows that 80% of all upstream oil and gas producers are still preparing new gas and oil reserves. We're asking ABN AMRO to have a firmer policy to meet the requirements, because at present it only concerns defining the role of the companies and disclosing phasing out oil and gas. We wonder whether given ABN AMRO's new climate strategy, will that include companies?
Will these companies be subject to a firm deadline rather than simply saying that they need to think about phasing out and that they should define a role relating to net zero? Thank you.
Thank you. I can give you a very brief answer there. Oil and gas outside Europe has been divested. Within Europe, oil and gas is a very small part of ABN AMRO's portfolio, and we are fully in line with the guidance, guidelines we agreed to before, that we will not finance oil and gas exploration. In addition to that, where we are active, we pay a great deal of attention to transition. The reason is that we take the view that as long as oil and gas are still part of the essentials for the society, that we can achieve more by being on board the transition and talking things further over with our clients than if we simply stand outside it all.
Do you refuse to do business with customers based on that assessment?
I think it would be excessive to respond to that in detail, but I can assure you we have our own assessments. Not only oil and gas, we make decisions on sometimes not provide services to some clients because of our own climate assessment.
Thank you.
Next speaker, please. My name is Gillian Gailliaert.
I'm Gillian Gailliaert, and I represent PGGM and the many participants at this general meeting. I have three questions about sustainability and your ambitions in this respect. The first reflects on the war. Please briefly elaborate on the effects of the war on the bank and the bank's plans relating to operations in Russia, despite perhaps having a very low exposure there.
Shall I respond to that straight away? Yes. Okay. This horrific war, I'd say above all is we're talking about the humanitarian disasters arising from the war, because I think really well, I think that's one of the main topics. If we talk about ABN AMRO's exposure to the war, it's the main impact, as I said in my introductory words, are very restricted because of past decisions. We haven't got any activities in Ukraine, et cetera. Our exposure is less than EUR 50 million at the moment. We have almost no direct impact. At a secondary level, yes, of course, we're looking to see what's happening on the inflation front because we all knew before the war started, inflation was going up and energy prices were going up, which leads to inflation.
We could see the supply shock we talked about earlier. That's only got worse because of the war. Here you have the knock-on effects, the secondary effects. We will see what impact that has on the Dutch economy as a whole. You talk about the main impact segments. That is to say, the ones which use a great deal of energy. That's heavy manufacturing, transport and logistics, agriculture. These are trends which we are keeping a very close eye on.
My second question concerns climate. It's wonderful to hear that you're working on a climate strategy, but I'd like to ask explicitly whether ABN AMRO is considering disclosing that, submitting that strategy for advice in next year's AGM, as well as whether that climate plan is being certified and validated by, for example, Science Based Targets initiative.
Target. When it comes to Science Based Targets initiatives, we are very fully involved with that. That whole methodology is very much what we are carrying out. As regards how we will be presenting the climate strategy, well, firstly, we're drafting it, and then we'll come back to you on that.
It's an explicit desire of us as shareholders and presumably others as well. My final question is about diversity and inclusion. You've made huge progress in your policy, but my specific question is, what steps is ABN AMRO taking to improve the positions of underrepresented groups such as women in lower and middle management groups and people of migration extraction to improve their positions within the bank?
Well, yes. You're flagging up exactly why diversity is so important. 'Cause you might at the top, you might want to have diversity, but it only actually will last if you make sure that people at all tiers of the organization are thinking in terms of diversity. That's not only women, it's all kinds of diversity. I can assure you that our diversity procedures and processes have a diversity test. We're making sure that we have targeted coaching for people who, as they rise through the organization. We're also very much involved in issues of bias. All of us can suffer bias, whether we like it or not. Bias awareness and awareness raising on that is something we're working on very much. Diversity, we have diversity circles at every tier of the bank structure.
At every point, we discuss our diversity targets and progress towards it. We can see very quickly when things are not making progress, so we can take according action. I'm very glad you can see that there is an impact in the leadership team and in the board. This is really a precondition for it working across the whole organization. Mr. Van den Bos, and then we'll come back to Mr. Franken's questions.
Well, I've been waiting for a while as well.
You've already asked some questions. Mr. Van den Bos, I'm chairman. I'm now giving you the floor. There you are. Please ask. You've already asked one question. Please go ahead.
Well, are you leading or suffering? That was just a pun. Item 2B. You delivered a wonderful treatise about climate and the like. What occurred to me then was Mr. de Swaan, when you were the bank's CFO decades ago, I never heard you say a word about climate. You never mentioned it. Let me finish what I have to say. Yeah. Back then, Mr. van Wachem of Royal Dutch Shell from Iceland gave me 2 bottles of hydrogen. You could simply drink it up. But the CFO of a company, which at the time the ABN AMRO, a large global company, I never heard you say a word about climate. Last Easter, I was reflecting on that. I never heard about that. I know Reitman invested in one of those huge windmills.
I do know that, but I never heard you say a word about it. How is that possible? Now, you're a major supporter of climate protection.
Perhaps you didn't always listen attentively, but perhaps I could remind you that I was one of the first members of the board of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Yes, yes indeed. I was there on behalf of ABN AMRO. I joined them in 2002. Perhaps you didn't notice at the time, but right back in 2002, sustainable development was already part of ABN AMRO's policy.
No, it was longer ago. That was much longer ago. Because Bachem left Shell far longer ago than that. I think it was at least 30 years ago, but that's just a minor detail.
Mr. Van den Bos, you were talking about my membership of the executive board. Perhaps I could remind you again, in 2002, I was one of the first bankers to join the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. I did that on behalf of ABN AMRO. I became CFO in 1999.
Well, there you have it. It's three years there. Now, another story. I hear wonderful stories from Mr. Swaak about let's focus on customers and customers this, customers that. I sent you the email to register via that wonderful proxy system that even your own employees moan and groan about. The PostNL board had issues with that. Ordina complained at length, "What will we do with it because the system doesn't work?" Regarding my email, it would have behooved you to respond to it because the PostNL board did not receive a response either. Perhaps if you could send Mr. Beelen an email about that, I'll be happy to register for each shareholders' meeting with one or two single shares.
It's nobody's business how many shares I have at the ING, at the ABN, or at other brokers. It's nobody's business. I'm willing to register 2 times 1 share, and I'm also willing to register them via my account manager. We can't make it any simpler than that.
Okay, Mr. Van den Bos, your complaint is very clear, and it's being picked up now by the complaint manager, will be taken up immediately. We think even one complaint is too many, and we do everything we can to respond to complaints in a reasonable way. We work on that day and night. If our solution does not suit you, please get in touch and we will respond to you.
Let's discuss that over a cup of coffee. I've got another issue.
Mr. Van den Bos, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I asked if we could ask very brief, concise questions. I'd also like to give Mr. Vreeken another chance to speak. You've already asked a lot of questions, so could I please just simply ask you to bear that in mind?
Well, Mr. Vreeken started making suggestions about the zoo and art, and I heard. I've already heard that. I have one more issue.
Yeah. Go ahead, please. Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah.
Well, you were going to answer my questions first. Inspired by this meeting, I have some additions to them.
I said I will answer your question. I'm very happy to do so. Well, I can assure you that for 2021, we are in the top 50% of the S&P Dow Jones Sustainability Index. That was your first question. Diversity and women. Well, your comment was, we shouldn't go, the pendulum shouldn't swing too far the other way, 'cause where have all the men gone? I wish that I could see things looking at that. I don't see it looking at that. I never have. If, with your permission, we will continue to be committed to our diversity targets. Not only women either. You suggested that we could improve our profile. You said the Artis Zoo was an example. I will certainly take your comment on board.
Please rest assured, the Hermitage Art Gallery is still enjoying our sponsorship. We make a contribution to art. ABN AMRO contributes to art in many ways. As you know, we have actually got the third largest art collection in the whole of the Netherlands. We're delighted by that. I hope you noticed as you came in that we have opened our premises for anyone who wants to walk in and enjoy the works of art, our works of art. This is our commitment to Dutch art, world art, but particularly we focus on Dutch artists. We are committed to helping them partly by maintaining our art collection. Yes, go ahead, please.
What you did not answer yet, you are completely focused on. Or there's a strong focus on making homes of the middle class and upper middle class more sustainable. The homes that are the least sustainable are inhabited by people at the low end of the market. If you don't get very costly heat pumps, but simple things such as solar panels, a generator, a circular shower that saves 80% on water and gas, you'll achieve huge improvement to the tune of tens of thousands of EUR if you buy in bulk, and you can really accelerate improvement there.
Yes, you're quite right. Yes. I see here on the bottom of my footnote it says, yes, and sustainability. Yes. We’ve got a number of very clear targets regarding sustainability. What we're doing increasingly as a bank is operating in a chain of companies where the sustainability transition can be impacted by our actions, including in the housing market. If I may, we’ve got. These are the bank's current clients, aren't they? We are very consistent with the choices we made when we selected the segments that we service. In addition to that, I fully agree, we can look at the chain to see how we can improve the effectiveness of what we do.
I have a complementary question. We're in the bankers' bandwidth, and a lot of the Russian money is being channeled via this area, perhaps not via the ABN, but you do have a lot of auditors that might catch sight of that money because the Dutch government is not investing a lot of effort. I think that your network has the expertise for tracking down that money. My question to the ABN AMRO is why don't you team up with the other banks and major law firms along in this area of the city to like whistleblowers report a lot of Russian money.
Well, I'm confident that the lawyers and auditors have the highest ethical standards. I know many of the auditors very well. In addition, we ourselves are fully in line with all the sanction requirements, and that we apply them and enforce them 24 hours a day.
Well, I know that, but nonetheless, Piet-Jan Albers told me it's all progressing via that banking bandwidth, the bad money. I'm not saying it happens that it's channeled via ABN AMRO, but it is channeled via the buildings surrounding ABN AMRO. Somehow the government cannot unearth it. There are a lot of financial geniuses in this neck of the woods which can help unearth and track down and rake in all those Russian millions.
Well, I think that the billions start flying around when you hear things like this. I'm not quite sure to which extent this is a job for ABN AMRO. I propose this is a job for the government to do. They would have to speak to the individual auditors and lawyers and so on, and banks. I understand that the government has now appointed a special sanctions coordinator, and I suggest we should allow the sanctions coordinator to get on with his job. I don't think that ABN AMRO takes a leadership role here. We are absolutely in line with all the sanctions twenty-four/seven, and we will continue to do so. If any new sanctions come in, we will abide by them.
Now, I think it's an important fact that we have got very low exposure to Russia and have got zero exposure regarding Ukraine and Belarus. I think that means we are amply in line with what is required of us. If we are invited to get involved in any kind of investigation, we will certainly be happy to do so.
Thank you very much for your explanation.
I suggest we allow one more question from the floor. Then we'll look at the chat, 'cause otherwise we're going to overrun massively. Who else would like to have the floor other than Mr. Van den Bos? Mr. Van den Bos.
My name is Van den Bos. That's quite all right, Mr. Van den Bos.
Go ahead, please, and please be brief.
I'll be concise impersonate in persona. Well, I spoke with Mr. Blok, who lives in Enkhuizen. That's the gentleman who coordinates everything. He said, "Well, the bank doesn't do very much." I worry that we're all going to see the bill. Now, I wanted to talk about the settlement. Wasn't it EUR 450 million, or am I confusing things? Because you mentioned EUR 480.
You're not getting confused. It was EUR 480 million.
It was always EUR 480 million. Okay. I was confused. My mistake. I've got one more question. Okay, what's been set aside for that interest? What portion comes from Altium? That's a good question, right?
I don't know. I'll look it up.
Altium is part of ABN AMRO.
Inasmuch as we can disclose it. The interpreter can't hear two people speaking at once.
I have two tiny questions for the auditor.
I thought that was one question.
Okay. Managing interim accounts. What's the story there with ABN AMRO and the accruals? Are they all up to date? Have they all been resolved? That was my last question concerning financials from A through G.
You got a response to that, auditor? Briefly, please. Yes, indeed. Suspense accounts are very important in any kind of banking auditing. Yes, it's basically auditing the bank itself and also checking how we work on a daily basis. Our suspense accounts in ABN AMRO are all looking very healthy. Of course, there's a suspense account balance. Money comes in, money goes out again. We ought to make sure that every item can be explained and there are no findings to report here. The same applies here with accruals. At the end of each quarter and year, we look into all the accruals and provisions and so on, and we look into those in great depth. Again, nothing special to report, nothing to be alarmed about. I hope that gives you an answer. Okay, moderator, I really must...
Oh, you think something's important? I assumed that all questions were important.
Well, I'm Mr. Schoenmaker, and if somebody gets money by selling a pack of lies, such as the people who commit fraud with bank passes. Mr. Schoenmaker, I'm talking about con artists, con men who manage to finagle people's bank cards from them. Remarkably, ABN AMRO charges the customer for that. Are you trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs?
Well, I can't talk about the individual cases you're talking about. Every time my
Well, in Julianadorp, there was an automatic debit fraud to the tune of EUR 90,000.
May I suggest that you could put that individual case to our complaint management team, and of course you will get a response.
Well, it
My suggestion is that you put it forward to the fraud management people. If they think they need to put it forward to the auditors, they will certainly do it, and you will certainly get an answer.
Well, I think it's insane that somebody had to go to prison and has plenty of money, and the other person has plenty of money and can do whatever he likes.
Once again, please address your issue to complaint management, and they will do the necessary and discuss it with the auditor if necessary.
Well, I rang the ABN. I'm a customer at MeesPierson, and I communicated the phone, the phone number, and they didn't know who it was, but that criminal holds an account at your bank. We're talking about fraud and deceit.
Okay. If you've done that, could you give me the details? Could you let me have the details? We always follow these things up, obviously within the law. Privacy is required. We will have to apply the privacy rules. But if you could give me the details of the individual case, we will certainly follow it up. It seems you've already been in contact with the people involved. We can't address the question here, but if you have made a complaint, then we will be able to see what exactly has been done with your complaint. Thank you very much.
I've got another question about that shareholders' meeting at the Manfed, because they wouldn't even register me for the shareholders' meeting. I had to sign up through proxy, what's its name? It was impossible to register easily, and I don't think that's nice.
We note what you say. Thank you very much. Okay. Now, moderator, have we had any questions coming in from the chat? No, no questions on the live chat. Okay. In that case, I conclude that we have reached the end of this item, and we can now move on to agenda item 2H. Adoption of the audited financial statements for 2021. I would refer you to the financial statements as set out in the 2021 financial report. The external auditor has scrutinized the financial statements and issued a statement that they are accepted. We have received no prior questions regarding their financial statements. Are there any questions from the room? Mr. Van den Bos, go ahead, please.
Sorry. Mr. Dorland was going to answer my question about your EUR 1.5 million loan at 1% and the loan of Mr. Penning for EUR 400,000 at 0.7%, and then I have a follow-up question. As for my mortgage, would you grant me the same interest rate for 20 years at a fixed interest rate?
I think you're too late with that question. Anyway, Mr. Dorland. Well, as always, mortgages have a particular time period and a particular agreement on the interest. Mr. de Swaan's loan has been there for some time. It was 1%, fully in line with all the rules. It's a fixed term, and it has been running for some time already. I think the mortgage rate was also 1%. I'm not going to discuss this any further.
Um,
Are there any questions regarding the financial statements? No. Moderator, are there any questions from the live chat? No questions from the live chat, Chairman. Okay. We will vote on the adoption of the financial statements. This is electronic voting. As I said at the beginning, you can cast your vote at any point during the meetings. The voting result will be published at the end of this meeting. We now move on to agenda item three. We've finally reached the end of item two, reserve and dividend policy. I suggest we go through three and A and B together. Once again, you will have an opportunity to respond to everything under agenda item three in one go. Go ahead, please, Robert.
Thank you, Tom. At the end of 2020, we determined the framework for our capital. We're committed, as we said earlier today, to distributing a dividend to our shareholders. ABN AMRO's distribution percentage in terms of dividend is set at 50% of the reported net earnings due to shareholders and depositary receipt holders after subtracting 81 coupon payments and minority interest. Basel IV is the primary standard for our capital, and we have a Basel IV CET1 target of 13%. If our Basel IV CET1 ratio exceeds the 15% threshold, we consider a share buyback if conditions allow and regulators approve.
Thank you. Thank you very much. 3B, proposal for paying a dividend. Robert, again.
In 2021, no interim dividend was distributed due to the ECB recommendation that still applied at the time. As soon as the ECB allowed it, as I said on October 25, the closing dividend of EUR 0.29 was distributed, equaling 68 cents per share or depositary receipt. ABN AMRO is proposing a closing dividend of EUR 0.61 per share for 2021 and on February 10, 2020 launched a share buyback program. This program is proceeding auspiciously and is expected to conclude in June 2022. The required capital for the share buyback program has been reserved and as of the end of 2021 was already excluded from the capital ratio.
This is a voting item, and once again, voting is taking place electronically. We now move on to agenda item 4A, discharge of each member of the executive board in office during the financial year 2021 for the performance of his or her duties during 2021. Now, once again, I'd like to go through 4A and 4B together. This is the discharge of the members of the executive board and of the supervisory board in office during the financial year 2021 for the performance of his or her duties during 2021. ABN AMRO did not have the discharge issue on the agenda of last year's general meeting because we had only shortly beforehand announced our settlement with the Public Prosecution Service regarding the money laundering issue within the bank.
Because it was such a short time between the announcement of the settlement and the annual general meeting of shareholders, April 21, 2021, shareholders and depositary receipt holders in many cases were not able to take account of this settlement when casting their vote on discharge of members of the executive board and members of the supervisory board for 2020. For that reason, ABN AMRO decided that this proposal should not be put on the vote at the 2020 meeting. On the basis of the investigation, the public prosecution found serious shortcomings in ABN AMRO's anti-money laundering processes, such as the client acceptance process, transaction monitoring processes, and the exit process in the 2014-2020 period. As a result of that, in some cases, clients were able to abuse ABN AMRO accounts.
As part of this settlement, ABN AMRO paid EUR 480 million. In 2019, ABN AMRO set up an anti-money laundering process across the whole bank, and we've invested a great deal in staff, systems, and processes. We've responded to a number of questions on that issue already. This anti-money laundering program and the setting up of the anti-money laundering unit means that ABN AMRO has now carried out radical structural changes which should lead to sustained recovery. These processes have been aligned with De Nederlandsche Bank, and ABN AMRO regularly informs De Nederlandsche Bank on progress. At the end of 2021, the number of full-time staff involved in anti-money laundering was up to beyond 5,000 full-time equivalents. You've heard that figure many times before.
ABN AMRO is making progress with its anti-money laundering restoration program, but it is taking quite a lot of time, and we will have to continue working on it into 2023. Now, since ABN AMRO had to reach a settlement with the Public Prosecution Service because the anti-money laundering processes were not satisfactory, we do not think it is appropriate to grant discharge or to ask you to grant discharge at any point regarding 2020. We are therefore only asking you to vote on discharge for 2021. Of course, you are able to speak on 2020 if you wish, and you can ask questions on it too. We'll start to deal with any questions which we have received already regarding the discharge of members of the Executive Board and Supervisory Board. We didn't have any questions submitted in advance.
Are there any questions from the floor? Yes, go ahead please.
I think that there is something amiss with the ING and ABN AMRO, where many of these shareholders hold shares. They've received penalties exceeding over EUR 1 billion. You report this to the prosecution, but I understand that the prosecution almost never prosecutes following those alerts. There are 5,000 people here. The prosecution lacks the manpower. You provide alerts and they're not followed up. We as shareholders don't get it. How can you be fined EUR 1 billion because DNB must know that the system is not working as it should. Why are those alerts not followed up with prosecution? That's a question not only for ABN AMRO. I believe it's also a question for the ING and Rabo banks as well.
You should ask collectively when alerts that resulted in prosecutions so that the cost of those 5,000 employees could be reduced by over 80%.
Thank you very much. I think it's important to note that we are meeting requirements as gatekeeper under the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act. Those are our public legal obligations, and we abide by our obligations, and we're working on them. As Mr. Swaak said, it's a huge effort. 5,000 FTEs working on it at present. That is an obligation, I think, to be a gatekeeper of the financial system, and we and other banks have taken on that burden. The way in which the Public Prosecution Service looked at it is not for us to decide. That's a decision for the public prosecutor to make. We are abiding by our legal obligations within the law. The law covering money laundering and the financing of terrorism. We're working flat out on making sure we live up to our obligations.
I repeat, it is for the Public Prosecution Service to decide what they do. It's not for us to decide.
Well, I understand that in some measure, but over EUR 1 billion of money from the shareholders which transferred to the government. You might expect that those shareholders, when you do file reports, the shareholders expect them to be followed up. My question on behalf of shareholders is, we don't like it that you do all this work, you deploy 5,000 people to this task and then the prosecution does nothing. I'd rather have the prosecution hire 5,000 people to follow up on all these alerts and prosecute.
The only thing I can say here, I can't decide whether or not the Public Prosecution Service decides to take any action. It's not for us to decide. It's for them to decide.
I understand that, but you could ask how often they prosecute and mention that your shareholders would like to know that, their organization is as professional as the banks are. 5,000 people sounds very professional to me, and if there's only 10 at the prosecution service, then society is out of sync. Perhaps you could convey that question to the prosecution.
Yes, I shall do that. Ms. Evers.
Thank you. I'd just like to reflect on the actual topic on the agenda, which is discharge for 2021. We were hesitating because we thought that the discharge for 2021 might have been overlooked, but I think it's a very wise and sensible idea. It was deleted from the agenda last year. We were told that it would be placed on the agenda this year. Given the severity of the offenses in the settlement, you don't have to agree with all the accusations, but implicitly it would be very sensible to specifically not to request a discharge now or for the previous year of 2020 at any point. I'm not sure who had the decisive vote in this discussion, but my compliments because it's very wise.
Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Mr. van den Bos, Mr. Frijken makes an excellent point, but the question I'd like to ask is, why did you settle with the Public Prosecution Service? Why didn't you let it go to trial? If we see what the prosecution has on its conscience in prosecuting Hamers and this person and that person. Well, nobody was prosecuted. All of a sudden, ABN AMRO settles. Well, I would have liked to see that go to trial. Well, this question may be rhetorical. Probably, there was a unanimous decision on the supervisory board to settle. If that were not the case, you wouldn't tell me.
You're answering your own question. You're only answering your own question, Mr. Van den Bos. Okay, I can see there are no other questions. Any questions from the live chat, moderator? No. No questions from the live chat. Okay, in that case, I conclude there are no further questions, and this is a voting item. As applies to all the votes, the voting results will be published at the end of the meeting. We now move on to agenda item 4B, discharge of each member of the supervisory board for 2021. What I said about agenda item 4A applies equally to 4B. Are there any questions from the floor? Are there any questions in the live chat? No. Okay. Then this is also a voting item. Here again, the voting results will be made known at the end of the meeting.
We now move on to agenda item five, report on the functioning of the external auditor. This is a discussion point. I'll give the floor to Mr. Tiemstra, the Chair of the Audit Committee. He will be telling us about the main findings regarding the operations of the external auditor in the course of the year.
Thank you very much. Well, as every year, we look through the points raised by the main managers working with the external auditor. In the survey, as happened last year, we found that it got an excellent score on a handful of issues: independence, objectiveness, knowledge, expertise, risk assessment, and developing risks at EY. The fifth item, I think, is the most important one. That is called professional skepticism.
Now, EY has been involved with us for some years now, but nevertheless, they are very good at giving positive criticism on the way in which we do our work. Room, points for improvement over last year. Well, the survey says, in particular, there is evaluation of financial reporting risks. Last year, some comment was made on that in the survey, and EY has worked on that. The audit procedures for significant risks of material misstatements have also been extended, and there are a number of other points for possibility or for room for improvement at EY. We take the view that data collection and data analysis can be improved further in the auditor's approach. We also think that when it comes to non-financial information, that is becoming more and more important, and we think that we need to have further improvement.
That is perfectly possible. Not only improvement at EY, but also the interaction of the material matters within the bank and the way in which EY can provide assurance on that. In conclusion, 3.6 out of 5 is the score, and that is a satisfactory score. Tom. Thank you, Tiemstra. Now, at the end of the meeting, I will be saying goodbye to you because it is the last meeting you'll be attending with us. I suggest we firstly deal with this agenda item. There are no questions on this asked in advance. Are there any questions from the floor? No. Are there any questions on the live chat? No, Chair. No questions from the live chat. Okay. In that case, I conclude there are no questions. Agenda item 6. Composition of the Supervisory Board. 6A, notification of Supervisory Board vacancies.
Now, in terms with the regular resignations from the Supervisory Board, Tiemstra and myself will see our term in, on the board ending at the end of today's meeting. This leads to two vacancies, one vacancy for the chair of the Supervisory Board and one for a member of the Supervisory Board, who must be a financial expert. We have drafted profiles for both vacancies, and they're added to the meeting documents. I've indicated that I'm willing to be appointed if desired, and Tiemstra has said that he does not wish to extend his time in office. Now, before I give you the opportunity to make comments, I suggest we first move on to agenda item 6B and 6 C. The opportunity for the general meeting to make recommendations with due regard to the profiles.
Well, so far, our shareholders and depository receipt holders have given us no recommendations regarding proposals for these vacancies. I, therefore, take it that the general meeting does not wish to avail itself of its right to make recommendations. As always, I will give you the floor to ask, to make any questions or suggestions if you wish at this stage. No questions were submitted in advance. Are there any questions from the room? Mr. Van den Bos.
I know an excellent person to conduct the audit, but I don't think it would be appropriate to disclose the name, so I would prefer to communicate that name to you after the meeting is over.
Thank you very much. Any further questions? Questions via the chat, moderator? No. I therefore conclude there are no questions and that the shareholders' meeting has not availed itself this opportunity to make recommendations. I suggest we move straight on to the next agenda item. 6 C, the opportunity for the Employee Council to elaborate on its position statements. Now, when Tjalling Tiemstra said that he did not wish to stand again in the Supervisory Board, we drew up a profile for a few members of the Supervisory Board. During the recruitment period, a proposed appointment with Sarah Russell. She's measured as a very strong candidate. She's had a number of leadership roles within the financial world, risk management, auditing and so on and so forth at ABN AMRO, at ING, and now at Aegon in the past.
For this reason, the Supervisory Board proposes her for membership of the board, and the ECB says they agree with her nomination. The Supervisory Board asked the Employee Council to adopt a position regarding my re-nomination and Sarah Russell's nomination for a four-year period. The Employee Council had a positive response, as they set out. Their statement is set out in the meeting documents. Here you can see that the Employee Council is unanimously in favor of both nominations. The Employee Council has said that they do not wish to speak on this subject at today's meeting. The Supervisory Board proposes that one new member should be nominated and one existing member should be re-nominated. The nomination, as proposed. Just one moment, please. Yes.
The nomination, as proposed, and re-nomination under this agenda item, because Tjalling Tiemstra is leaving the board, will lead to 60, approximately 60% of seats in the Supervisory Board being occupied by women and 40% by men. The Supervisory Board takes the view that this nomination and re-nomination will mean that the Supervisory Board can continue to do its work satisfactorily. I'll give the floor to Mr. Arjen Dorland, who will deal with the first part of this agenda item.
Thank you. The first section of this agenda item relates to the reappointment of Tom de Swaan as a member of the supervisory board as of the end of this meeting, for a four-year term that will end after the annual general meeting of 2026. If he's reappointed, Tom de Swaan will continue to chair the supervisory board. As you can read in the convocation, Tom de Swaan is being nominated for reappointment because of his in-depth knowledge of financial services and international companies and his excellent track record which he demonstrated at the ABN AMRO through the way he performed in his role as chair of the supervisory board of the selection nomination committee and of the remunerations committee.
He has the right skills to, as in the past four years as Chairman of the Supervisory Board, maintain good constructive relations with the Executive Board and all other interested parties. No questions were received in advance about this item. Are there any questions from those in the room? Mr. Frijters.
Well, I just read a wonderful interview with Mr. de Swaan in the NRC newspaper. It's from 2018. A lovely story. There's an awful lot in it about the life of Tom de Swaan. I have the impression that's very important for someone at the top of a company like ABN AMRO. I think, I personally think it's a real shame that the ABN AMRO-ING merger didn't go ahead. We talked about that briefly. Because that would have led to a global company based in the Netherlands. We wouldn't have been in this rather peculiar system with the money launderettes and whatnot. What I would like, I think, is that he was also involved with a Chinese bank. I'm very much in favor of influence and networking and so on. Now, China is making Russia into a sort of Chinese province.
We are withdrawing from Russia, and China is going to snaffle everything up. If China stops giving Russia a green light to make war, Russia will stop making war. Now, obviously, Mr. de Swaan can't do this all by himself, but he's one of the few people who has China's ear. My suggestion is that Tom de Swaan should be re-nominated, and I would be glad to hear whether he would like to say something about why he wants to carry on for the next four years. Chairman, may I answer? Yes. Thank you. Well, firstly, I'd just like-
I'd like to correct a misunderstanding. I have no dealings with any Chinese bank. Once I served on the board of advice for the China Banking Regulatory Committee, but that was quite a while ago. It was at least six or seven years ago that I left. So I have no dealings with Chinese banks, nor do I feel any such need. As for reappointment, first they need to invite you. Your coworkers need to ask you if you're interested in being reappointed first. My coworkers asked me, and quite honestly, I'm on tenterhooks, and I'm delighted. We're at a stage in the bank with entire new people in the Executive Board, such as Robert and all his people on the Executive Board. This is auguring an entire new stage in the bank. It greatly excites me.
I'm delighted to continue to be part of it, and I hope to be able to contribute to this in the coming years. It's fun, interesting, exciting. That's why when Mr. Dorland, as Chairman of the Remuneration Committee and Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board, approached me, I agreed fairly quickly. Does it make sense? Time will tell.
Thank you very much for your enthusiastic response. I also see that, Mr. de Swaan has got a very green heart. His heart will beat for us. Any further questions? I see we haven't any questions. Any questions from the live chat? No. Thank you very much. Okay. Well, that brings us to the vote, and with the other voting items, the result will be made known at the end of the meeting. This brings us on to the next agenda item, the decision to propose Sarah Russell as a member of the Supervisory Board. She has extensive experience running complicated international organizations, including a number of financial ones. She's built up extensive skills and knowledge in service industries such as financial services management, auditing, asset management, and she's very much in line with our individual profile for our financial expert.
For further information, I would refer you to Sarah's CV, which you'll find in the meeting documents. Her nomination will apply from today for a four-year period, therefore ending at the end of the annual general meeting of shareholders in 2026. Now, Sarah would like to say a few words about why she wants this position. Sarah, go ahead, please.
Good afternoon. I'm delighted to be here today. I'm Sarah Russell, and I'm pleased to introduce myself. I was born in Melbourne in 1962 as one of twins, and I am an Australian national. A long time ago, I had the good fortune to come to the Netherlands for a two-month project. I was invited. We're 22 years down the road, and I'm still here. I'm delighted to live here with my Dutch husband, and I enjoy my grandchildren. In the meantime, I'm keeping my promise to my parents to return once a year to visit my family. After concluding my studies in business in 1981, I started my career at Toronto-Dominion in Melbourne. First, I dealt with administrative matters, and then I joined the financial markets team.
These were exciting times in which the Australian banking industry was being deregulated. Foreign operators were being allowed in, and the decision was taken to float the Australian dollar. In 1994, I took my master's in applied finance at Macquarie University. In the meantime, I moved from Melbourne to Sydney to start working at ABN AMRO as senior executive at Financial Markets. In the next six years, I headed up treasury and hedging services for commercial clients. In June 2000, I started working here on Gustav Mahlerlaan to participate in this two-month project. I went to work to design the bank-wide ABN AMRO strategy of 2001. I held various global market COO roles until being appointed in 2004 as CFO, Wholesale Clients.
In 2006, I was appointed CEO at ABN AMRO Asset Management, and I've continued in this capacity until the legal demerge and sale to Fortis in 2008, when I left the bank. These positions were very important, and I learned a lot from them. To give you a few examples, the focus on client value and how lovely diversity is. I've learned a lot about that because I headed up teams with coworkers in 45 countries, and the complexities and challenges inherent in transforming companies and technology in which you need to take into account a legacy that dates back decades. The most important lesson has been the impact and strength of personal leadership and how this can enhance collective leadership in good times and in periods of stress, uncertainty, and adversity.
I continued my career as Aegon Asset Management CEO from 2010 to 2019, and from 2016, I also served on the Aegon N.V. Executive Board. At the same time, I was able to combine my role with non-executive duties. Until last month, I was Supervisory Board member at Nordea Bank in Finland, and I did that for 12 years. Our work running Nordea included supporting what was known as branchification of our most important subsidiary banks. We also relocated the head office from Sweden to Finland to be under the supervision of the single supervisory mechanisms of the ECB, like other European banks. I am presently a member of the Supervisory Board of both the APG Group and of their subsidiary, APG Asset Management.
In addition, I am a supervisory board member at the Currency Exchange Fund in the Netherlands and at Ostrum Asset Management in France. Over the years, I have had extensive contact with coworkers, customers, regulators, and other stakeholders. Together, they have helped form my opinion about what building a sustainable organization requires. For example, our license to operate means not only that we must comply with legislation regulation, but especially that we need to earn the trust of client, society, and our other stakeholders, and we need to retain that and strengthen it. We can be a purpose-driven firm only if we consistently ensure that all our actions contribute to realizing that purpose. Because I worked for ABN AMRO in the past, I appreciate the legacy of this bank. Today is not about looking back.
Today is about supporting the ABN AMRO leadership today in implementing the strategy of being a personal bank in the digital era. I believe that I can add great value to the bank if I am appointed today. I am greatly looking forward to becoming an ABN AMRO Supervisory Board member. I'm pleased to answer questions to support my nomination. I would very much appreciate if you could ask these questions in English. Thank you for listening.
Thank you very much, Sarah. Are there any questions? As you said, you may ask your questions in English, but you may ask questions in Dutch if you like, but the answers will be in English. We did not have any questions sent in advance. Are there any questions from the floor? No. Are there any questions in the chat, moderator? No. Okay. Then I conclude there are no questions. You were extremely convincing, Sarah. Okay, this is a voting item. As always, the voting results will be made known at the end of the meeting. Thank you very much, Sarah. This brings us on then to agenda item seven. ABN AMRO issuing new shares and acquisition of shares and depository receipts for shares.
The general meeting of shareholders can authorize the Executive Board to issue shares or grant rights to subscribe for shares, to exclude preemptive rights, and to acquire depository receipt shares in the share capital of ABN AMRO. The Executive Board, with the approval of the Supervisory Board, is proposing that the authorization granted by the general meeting of shareholders on April 20 , 2021, it should be extended for 18-month period and in accordance with agenda item 7A, 7B, and 7C. This authorization will enable ABN AMRO to respond rapidly if circumstances require an issue of or repurchase of shares and depository receipts. Agenda item 7 covers three separate items. I suggest we go through 7A, 7B, and 7C all together. After that, you will have an opportunity to ask questions on the whole of agenda item 7 altogether.
We'll start off with agenda item 7A. The proposal is to authorize the Executive Board for a period of 18 months from the date of the general meeting, subject to the approval of the Supervisory Board to issue ordinary shares, excluding for the avoidance of doubt, ordinary shares B2, to grant rights to subscribe to such ordinary shares up to a maximum of 10% of ABN AMRO's issued share capital as of the date of the general meeting. The Executive Board will only be allowed to use this authorization with the approval of the Supervisory Board. In addition, this authorization will not be used for issuances related to a distribution of stock dividend or for issuances in connection with management or employee incentive plans. Agenda item 7B: authorization to limit or exclude preemptive rights.
Again, the Executive Board can only act with the authorization of the Supervisory Board. Because more than 50% of issued capital is present with us today, the meeting can decide by simple majority on this proposal. We move on to agenda item 7C: authorization to acquire shares and depository receipts to shares in ABN AMRO's own capital. It is proposed to authorize the Executive Board for a period of 18 months from the date of the general meeting to acquire, subject to the approval of the Supervisory Board, fully paid-up ordinary shares in its own share capital on the stock exchange or by other means. Once again, this is not to include ordinary shares B. The Executive Board can only act each time with the approval of the Supervisory Board.
A purchase of shares or depository receipts for shares in ABN AMRO's own capital can take place for restructuring or capital re-reduction purposes. This will only happen if all existing and future solvency requirements are met. The purchase of shares to be bought is to be at least the nominal value of the shares and maximum to be 10% of the issued share capital as at the general meeting and the transaction date of the relevant transaction provided they are currently being traded. This would therefore be the case that on the February 9, 2022, the authorization, the repurchase program will come to an end and so will the authorization under 2021. There are no questions submitted in advance. Were any questions from the floor now? No. Moderator, are there any questions on the chat? No. No.
Okay, I conclude there are no questions on this agenda item. This is also a voting point. Agenda item 8. Cancellation of shares and depository receipts in the issued share capital of ABN AMRO. The General Meeting is being invited to resolve on the proposal of the Executive Board, subject to the approval of the Supervisory Board as well as the approval of the ECB and other relevant regulators, to cancel all or part of the fully paid-up ordinary shares in ABN AMRO's own share capital held by ABN AMRO as a result of acquisitions on the stock exchange or by other means under the authority provided to the Executive Board under item 7C. For all clarity, this does not include ordinary shares B.
The cancellation of all or part of treasury shares is proposed will be restricted to 10% of total issued share capital of ABN AMRO at the date of the general meeting and may be executed within a period of 18 months as of the date of this general meeting. Are there any questions or comments on this proposal? There are no questions submitted in advance. Are there any questions from the floor? Are there any questions on the live chat? No. Well, that brings us to the end of the voting items on the agenda. We will close voting on all agenda items in a moment, and I hope that we will be able to make all the voting results known after we've gone through any other business. This brings us on to any other business. Who would like to say something? Ms. Evers, VEB.
I promise I'll only ask one question. This is a question of great relevance to us shareholders in the light of what the Ministry of Finance is doing. Goldman Sachs has offered its services to ABN AMRO. We're very pleased about this 'cause they're very expensive, but we are rather concerned about it. What is it actually going to involve? We can see in the 2020 annual report that ABN AMRO says, "We remain open to all acquisition act opportunities, especially in private banking." Sarah, I know I'm speaking English to help you along a bit. In 2021, it was rather different. It doesn't say bolt-on acquisition opportunities, including private banking. It says, "We remain open to acquisitions that accelerate our strategy execution." Why have you adapted and indeed broadened the criteria for acquisitions compared with last year?
Why did you choose this new form of words? Have you deliberately given yourselves more leeway? If you look at the book value and indeed the share price, we can see that ABN AMRO might be a target for others. Where is ABN AMRO, where is Goldman Sachs in terms of looking for takeover candidates? What's the situation here? Yes, I can give you a very brief answer to that. I don't know all this stuff about Goldman Sachs. It wasn't me talking about it. Secondly, two years ago, we were talking about bolt-on private banking. This year, indeed, we're talking about the accelerating strategy execution. From the very beginning, we said that private banking is very central to the execution of our strategy.
We're looking at the opportunities which can help us to achieve our strategic goals more swiftly, and you've got to have pretty tight criteria for that. This is really what we've always been saying. That's it. Thank you, Robert. Mr. Van den Bos. I would like to thank Mr. Tiemstra for all he's been doing in four years. Was it or eight years? Six years. Well, there we are, exactly in between. Okay. I'd like to thank him for all he's done to the supervisory board. It's a bit like are you being served, isn't it? Yes, we hear a lot of words, but my thanks are sincere. No argy-bargy. Thank you, Mr. Van den Bos. Are there any further questions? Yes, go ahead, please. Yes. I've got this lovely device here.
Normally, we can see what happens, but nothing has happened. What's going on? No, it has happened. It's just you can't see it. No, all kinds of things have been happening, but you can't see them happening. I'm hoping to be able to make all the vote results known by the end of the meeting. That's why I'm trying to drag things out a little bit 'cause it hasn't come through yet. I'm hoping that all voting results will be on the screen by the end of the meeting. No, but we couldn't vote during the meeting. Yes, we did. At each agenda item, I said, "You can now cast your vote." I said every time, "You can cast your vote." Or, is there something wrong with your device? Any further questions? I'd...
I've now got something on my screen saying voting results, but please go ahead.
I'm curious about the results of the red teams. They're trying to enter ABN AMRO. I assume that ABN AMRO is using that, and I'm curious how successful they are. This question is both to ABN AMRO and the auditor of ABN AMRO. Red teams are hackers that test systems, and as is known, the government does not have its IT systems carefully controlled, especially not with the Inland Revenue Service, and that leads to problems throughout the Netherlands. What's the story at ABN AMRO? Because if I ask that question, the standard response is that things are going beautifully, and then it turns out that those red teams can get in everywhere if you give them enough time.
Well, 24/7, every day, cybersecurity enjoys our fullest attention. Not just today and yesterday, but tomorrow as well. Because we are aware that there's increasing level of risk, of threat, indeed, the red teams, as they're known, but not only them. There's also war in other parts of the world. The bank's cybersecurity measures are very successful, and they protect the bank.
What about dependence on certain government systems and payment transactions?
The same apply. The same reply. We've got a good security system which works well. Are there any further questions? Yes, go ahead, please.
I managed to cast my vote with some assistance from coworkers.
Thank you. I'm very glad to hear that. Excellent. That's important. Okay. There are no further questions. Any questions on the live chat? No. Okay, thank you. Well, in that case, I've got something on my screen saying voting results. But I can't do much with that yet. Here we are. Okay, I can see that every item has been accepted with a significant majority, 99.67%. I can see agenda item 3C, 2H, 100%. 99.33% for 2F. So I can assure you that all agenda items have been enjoyed the very generous majority vote of shareholders. For A, 99.42%. For B, 99.42%. 6D, 99.9%. 6D, subsection three, 99.94%.
Thank you very much for that. Thank you for voting for all our proposals. It's such a huge, generous majority. Yeah. The full results will come through in due course. This brings me now to a couple of personal points I'd like to make. First of all, Tjalling.
takes me to two individuals. We'll go into far more detail this evening, but I'd like to thank you in the presence of all the shareholders for your immense dedication over the past six years and your expertise and experience as financial expert. I would also like to say, your morality have been exceptionally valuable to the supervisory board, and I'd like to thank you for your tremendous contribution to the supervisory board. Thank you.
I'm not going to switch to English. I'll stick to Dutch in order to keep your Dutch alive.
I'd also like to thank Christian Bornfeld sincerely for the wonderful work he did for ABN AMRO over the past four years. It's unfortunate for us, but we understand that you would like to work in closer proximity to your family in Denmark. Thank you very much, Christian.
Not least,
A very warm welcome to Sarah. We're delighted that she will join the Supervisory Board, and we greatly look forward to working with you, Sarah. Thank you and welcome.
I now close the meeting. Thank you for attending and for contributing to this meeting. The meeting is now over.