Rabobank
Admits
Subprime
Exposure &
Purchase of
Failed Banks,
Desjardins on
Citi Deal
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 31 --
When the UN
scheduled a
press
conference
Monday
entitled
"Financial
Crisis and
Cooperative
Banks,"
it was
expected that
the two
cooperative
banks invited
to speak would
be akin to the
credit unions
being praised
in the Occupy
Wall Street
movement, in
opposition
to big banks
like JPMorgan
Chase and
Bank
of
America.
But
on the UN
podium was the
chairman of
Dutch
multinational
Rabobank, Mr.
Piet
Moerland.
Inner City
Press asked
him about
protests to
Rabobank in
the United
States,
complete with
mariachi bands
and complaints
of
discriminating
against small
borrowers, and
also about
Rabobank's
statements
that it was
"exposed" to
subprime
lending in the
US. Video here,
from Minute
26:05.
Moerland
replied
that Rabobank
had to expand
outside of The
Netherlands
because of its
small
population,
and that the
US is its most
important
non-Dutch
market. He
acknowledged
the exposure
to subprime
lending,
calling it
"indirect,"
but bragged
that Rabobank
grew from 30
billion
Euros in 2006
up to 40
billion Euros.
He
said in the US
it's made
purchases "at
the request of
the FDIC" -
that is,
of failed
banks.
Apparently,
Rabobank has
profited from
the global
financial
crisis.
Moerland said
that in
California,
Rabobank is
"about half
way there."
We'll see.
Why
such a
multinational
bank would be
presented at
the UN as the
poster child
of the
cooperative
movement, a
topic on which
former UK
prime
minister
Gordon Brown
speechified to
the General
Assembly later
on
Monday, is not
clear.
Piet
Moerland
of Rabobank -
no more
questions!
Smaller
but
similarly
mystifying was
the presence
of Canada's
Desjardins
Group. Its CEO
Monique Leroux
said that
before growing
outside of
Canada --
it already has
a presence in
Florida in the
US -- or
making other
expansions, it
would speak
with its
people.
Inner
City Press
asked about a
recent
Desjardins
deal with Citigroup and
Staples, to
buy a credit
card
portfolio. Did
Desjardins
check with its
depositors
before that
business
transaction?
Ms. Leroux
referred back
to a 2009
meeting at
which business
lines were
agreed to.
After that, it
seems, it's
just business.
Footnote:
a
reporter from
Agence France
Presse, which
is 41%
funded by the
French
government,
asked if
either bank
would lend to
Greece. During
the Brussels
meetings, French
president
Sarkozy said
Greece
shouldn't
have been
allowed to
join the
Eurozone,
and was angry
to play second
fiddle
to Germany's
Angela Merkel.
Neither banker
answered the
Greece
question, and
the AFP
reporter
didn't push.
And so it goes
at the UN.
, 
