4 ms·

Rabobank, U.N. launch $1B fund to boost sustainable farming

70 points by kartikkumar 9y ago

spiderfarmer 9y ago
The Rabobank is a bank that gave very stupid guidance to our own farmers here in The Netherlands, its home country. When the milking quota came to an end, it told dairy farmers to invest in more production, while everyone knew production would rise anyway and prices would go down. At the time it would make more sense to invest in things that could lower cost. Or, you know, invest in growing products where demand is growing, like sustainable milk. They were cocksure investing in more production was the way to go. If you came to them with a business plan that foresaw in lower milk prices they would flat out tell you you were wrong. When the prices for milk came crashing down they acted like it was something nobody could have foreseen, while it's basic economic theory. Great goal. But I don't trust them.
apexalpha 9y ago
My bank! the only Dutch bank that did not need any government support during the crisis. They also don't have shareholders but are formed as a cooperative structure. And I think they stopped handing out bonusses for their top executives after the baking crisis. They are pretty big on farming here in NL, and abroad. They did have a scandal of Libor fraud rate. But they responded with a big apology and the guy in charge resigning. The current chairman has a background in Mechanical Engineering I think, in stead of some Wall Street / City guy. Might not be perfect but they're a pretty decent organisation as far as I can tell.
- mcv 9y ago
  The Libor fraud was pretty serious. But it seems they've learned. I'm their customer (I've got my mortgage there; they're the largest Dutch mortgager), but they are also my customer: I'm currently working on a redesign for their international website at rabobank.com, the first part of which just went live this week as part of a big campaign to refocus on food and agriculture (they started out as a bank for farmers), that this is probably also part of. It's pretty cool to finally see something (indirectly) related to my work appear on HN.
  - dna_polymerase 9y ago
    Libor is fraud by design. Nobody learned anything from the scandal.
    - mcv 9y ago
      The Libor fraud was done by a fairly new London office that was created to join in the fast high finance world in London, and that office operated mostly outside the view of the central office in Netherland. From what I read, they seem to have learned not to do that anymore. It was stupid and greedy and blew up in their face.
- ar-jan 9y ago
  They also offered misleading interest swaps, for which they're getting sued.
  - joering2 9y ago
    And there was that bank robber who responded with big apology and said he resigned from robing banks ever again /s
- Vinnl 9y ago
  > the only Dutch bank that did not need any government support during the crisis. How about Triodos? Non-consumer banks?
- Fnoord 9y ago
  They support various sports. One sport they supported for a long time is cycling. In men cycling, a lot of fraud with doping took place in the 90s and 00s of which Lance Armstrong is the most known culprit. After Rabobank was leading with Rasmussen and found out he lied about his whereabouts they took him out of the race. They ended up pulling out of the men cycling team. The next year, the team went without a sponsor. More info on Wikipedia [1] [2]. In 2017 there are various new banks in The Netherlands since the crisis of 2007. For a list, see [3]. Of interest might be Bunq [4] because of their many innovations (although they recently became more expensive, and other banks are catching up on features). Interest is very low with all banks. Triodos doesn't even give interest on savings accounts anymore, but the difference between Rabobank is merely 0,05% [5] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_LottoNL%E2%80%93Jumbo#Rabobank_.281996.E2.80.932012.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_LottoNL%E2%80%93Jumbo#Rab... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WM3_Pro_Cycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WM3_Pro_Cycling [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_in_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_in_the_Netherlan... [4] https://www.bunq.com/ https://www.bunq.com/ [5] https://www.rabobank.nl/particulieren/sparen/spaarrekening-en-spaarrente/ https://www.rabobank.nl/particulieren/sparen/spaarrekening-e...

70 points by kartikkumar 9y ago

The Rabobank is a bank that gave very stupid guidance to our own farmers here in The Netherlands, its home country. When the milking quota came to an end, it told dairy farmers to invest in more production, while everyone knew production would rise anyway and prices would go down. At the time it would make more sense to invest in things that could lower cost. Or, you know, invest in growing products where demand is growing, like sustainable milk. They were cocksure investing in more production was the way to go. If you came to them with a business plan that foresaw in lower milk prices they would flat out tell you you were wrong. When the prices for milk came crashing down they acted like it was something nobody could have foreseen, while it's basic economic theory. Great goal. But I don't trust them.

apexalpha 9y ago

My bank! the only Dutch bank that did not need any government support during the crisis. They also don't have shareholders but are formed as a cooperative structure. And I think they stopped handing out bonusses for their top executives after the baking crisis. They are pretty big on farming here in NL, and abroad. They did have a scandal of Libor fraud rate. But they responded with a big apology and the guy in charge resigning. The current chairman has a background in Mechanical Engineering I think, in stead of some Wall Street / City guy. Might not be perfect but they're a pretty decent organisation as far as I can tell.

mcv 9y ago
The Libor fraud was pretty serious. But it seems they've learned. I'm their customer (I've got my mortgage there; they're the largest Dutch mortgager), but they are also my customer: I'm currently working on a redesign for their international website at rabobank.com, the first part of which just went live this week as part of a big campaign to refocus on food and agriculture (they started out as a bank for farmers), that this is probably also part of. It's pretty cool to finally see something (indirectly) related to my work appear on HN.
- dna_polymerase 9y ago
  Libor is fraud by design. Nobody learned anything from the scandal.
  - mcv 9y ago
    The Libor fraud was done by a fairly new London office that was created to join in the fast high finance world in London, and that office operated mostly outside the view of the central office in Netherland. From what I read, they seem to have learned not to do that anymore. It was stupid and greedy and blew up in their face.
ar-jan 9y ago
They also offered misleading interest swaps, for which they're getting sued.
- joering2 9y ago
  And there was that bank robber who responded with big apology and said he resigned from robing banks ever again /s
Vinnl 9y ago
> the only Dutch bank that did not need any government support during the crisis. How about Triodos? Non-consumer banks?
Fnoord 9y ago
They support various sports. One sport they supported for a long time is cycling. In men cycling, a lot of fraud with doping took place in the 90s and 00s of which Lance Armstrong is the most known culprit. After Rabobank was leading with Rasmussen and found out he lied about his whereabouts they took him out of the race. They ended up pulling out of the men cycling team. The next year, the team went without a sponsor. More info on Wikipedia [1] [2]. In 2017 there are various new banks in The Netherlands since the crisis of 2007. For a list, see [3]. Of interest might be Bunq [4] because of their many innovations (although they recently became more expensive, and other banks are catching up on features). Interest is very low with all banks. Triodos doesn't even give interest on savings accounts anymore, but the difference between Rabobank is merely 0,05% [5] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_LottoNL%E2%80%93Jumbo#Rabobank_.281996.E2.80.932012.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_LottoNL%E2%80%93Jumbo#Rab... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WM3_Pro_Cycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WM3_Pro_Cycling [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_in_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_in_the_Netherlan... [4] https://www.bunq.com/ https://www.bunq.com/ [5] https://www.rabobank.nl/particulieren/sparen/spaarrekening-en-spaarrente/ https://www.rabobank.nl/particulieren/sparen/spaarrekening-e...