Banking

   Because of the numerous different coins and currenciesin the Dutch trade center of Amsterdam, an exchange bank was founded in 1609. Its aim was to facilitate payments by providing a kind of bill of exchange based on the deposit of specie. In effect, a kind of money transfer (giro) was created. It was only at the end of the 18th century that the Amsterdam Wisselbank began giving some long-term loans (credit). That bank was liquidated in 1820, but by then a national bank had been founded: the Nederlandsche Bank (1814). During the 19th century, many private banks were estab lished, most of which have merged in recent years. Nonetheless, there are still several major Dutch banks, such as ABN AMRO, ING Group (a merger of Nationale Nederlanden and NMB Postbank in 1991), and RABObank (a cooperative bank formed by the merger of the Raiffeisenbank and the Boerenleenbank in 1972). NMB Postbank itself was a merger, in 1989, of the Nederlandse Middenstands Bank (NMB) and the Postbank.