What is Rabobank?

I live in Southern California and noticed recently that a lot of the banks in the local regions of Oak View, Ojai, Ventura, Oxnard, and Santa Barbara have all been taken over by the name: Rabobank. Driving by and seeing these new signs made me curious with thoughts, and here are those thoughts and the research into: who is Rabobank?

The name Rabobank sounded odd to me. Looking at it from a commercial and first impressions sort of advertising stance the first three thoughts that pop into my mind are:

1. Robbing a bank
2. Robocop
3. Sounds like they’re from India

Surely it is a bad idea to name your bank after something one might associate with bank robbery itself. Personally I might be turned away on a subliminal level thinking my money is not safe. Actually I like to try and avoid banks altogether, but that is another story. However, where does this name come from?

Rabobank is made from the first two letters of the names Raiffeisen and Boerenleen, then the word bank added on. It is a Dutch co-operative institute that owes its foundation to the Coöperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen-Bank in Utrecht and Coöperatieve Centrale Boerenleenbank in Eindhoven which were formed in 1898 in more rural areas to help with agricultural financing. The two separate banking systems merged legally in 1972 and then in 1980 changed their name to Rabobank, which was what they had unofficially been referring to themselves as anyway. Rabobank did not go international until 1996, however.

Following good business practices Rabobank was able to expand beyond just agricultural clients. By the 1960’s it was quite a popular chain within the Netherlands and was awarded Triple A status; which makes it the only privately owned bank to hold such a status as of October of 2007.

Personally I have not gone inside the doors of one of these Rabobanks that has sprung up on every other corner, however, in places such as Santa Barbara I still see the same lines going in and out without wane. My one transaction sullied by the arrival of Rabobank has been a weekly visit to a nearby ATM machine. I used to check my balance and withdraw cash at a lone ATM machine next to an old non-functional bank building. Well, apparently Rabobank bought up even the small abandoned looking establishments and slapped their sticker on to the ATM. Instead of the arm I was giving with a $2 transaction fee at this particular machine, I now find that the fee has been raised to a leg at $3 since Rabobank took over. Needless to say I’ve decided to keep my appendages and just use the ATM at my actual banking institute Santa Barbara Bank and Trust or sometimes the $1.50 charge at the Vons grocery store ATM isn’t too bad. Of course it is sometimes great to cut out the middle man altogether and if you do a lot of business online and use Paypal, I have one of their debit cards and have enjoyed it just fine.

Sources:

www.rabobank.com

www.wikipedia.com