THE HAGUE— The Scottish bank won the contract after a European tender procedure.

The contract with Royal Bank of Scotland will last at least four years and seven at most. RBS will handle about 66 million transactions a year for the Dutch ministries. In the past years, ING and the Rabobank were the governments preferred banks.

Together with Banco Santander and Fortis, RBS was part of a consortium which bought up ABN Amro in 2007. RBS recently became the focus of widespread criticism when it announced that large bonuses would be paid out to its top management despite losses running into the billions of euros. The British government, a majority shareholder in RBS, forced the bank to reconsider.

Radio Netherlands/Expatica