ABN Amro (AMS: ABN), a Dutch bank with headquarters in Amsterdam and currently the third-largest bank in the Netherlands, will be offering clients a sustainability discount on mortgage interest rates for energy-efficient homes.
ABN Amro‘s management noted that they will be using the EU’s Energy Label categorization in order to evaluate sustainability scores for houses. For properties that are registered in the upper A category, the banking institution will offer a 0.15% discount on interest repayments (as reported by Finextra). Houses that are officially registered as B properties will be eligible for a 0.1% discount.
ANB Amro’s management stated:
“We aim to attain an average energy label A for all residential and commercial properties we finance by 2030. We want to encourage our clients to make their homes more sustainable, so we’re offering this sustainability discount as an incentive.”
Current and new mortgage customers will qualify for the rate reduction if they make their properties more sustainable after the beginning of a fixed-interest period and also if they register their energy label – assuming it is A or B – within a 2-year period.
ABN Amro confirmed that it automatically obtains the energy labels proactively from the Rijksdienst Voor Ondernemend Nederland (Netherlands Enterprise Agency). If the conditions have been satisfied, the banking institution applies the discount without requiring the customer to apply for it.
ABN Amro points out that there’s “a lot to consider when buying a home in the Netherlands and it can be a bit overwhelming.” And if you’re not sure exactly where to begin, then you can follow their step-by-step guide, from calculating or determining how much you are able to borrow till actually receiving your mortgage offer.
As reported in April 2021, ABN Amro and Rabobank, a Dutch multinational banking and financial services group, announced they were working with research platform TNO in order to test technology that allows banking institutions to share data that’s used for identifying financial crime while maintaining customers’ privacy.
The partners are testing different ways of monitoring transactions between customers at different banks without actually sharing the risk scores that they may give to their clients.
ABN Amro’s management noted that they don’t want to share these risk scores with other banking service providers. However, if one of their low-risk customers receives funds from “high-risk” clients at other banks, then they want to be able to monitor that client “more closely,” ABN Amro explained.