Following aggressive international expansion, ABN AMRO was acquired and broken up in 2007–2008 by a consortium of European banks, including Fortis which intended to take over its formed operations in the Benelux region.

In 2006, research findings were publicly released regarding ABN AMRO Bank N.V.'s predecessors and connections to African slavery.

An examination of 200 predecessors of ABN AMRO Bank N.V. founded before 1888, determined that some had connections to African slavery, either in the United States or elsewhere in the Americas.

At that time, the magazine The Banker and Fortune Global 500 placed it 15th[14] in the list of world's biggest banks and it had operations in 63 countries, with over 110,000 employees.

On 21 February 2007, The Children's Investment Fund Management (TCI) hedge fund called to ask the Chairman of the Supervisory Board to actively investigate a merger, acquisition, or breakup of ABN AMRO, stating that the current stock price did not reflect the true value of the underlying assets.

Events accelerated on 20 March 2007, when the British bank Barclays and ABN AMRO both confirmed they were in exclusive talks about a possible merger.

The three banks set up a joint venture, RFS Holdings (with a name based on their respective initials), to execute the transaction.

[19] The sale of LaSalle was seen as obstructive by many: as a way of blocking the RBS bid, which hinged on further access to the US markets, in order to expand on the success of the group's existing American brands, Citizens Bank and Charter One.

While the Barclays offer matched ABN AMRO's "strategic vision," the board couldn't recommend it from "a financial point of view."

On 22 April 2008, RBS announced the largest rights issue in British corporate history, which aimed to raise £12billion in new capital to offset a writedown of £5.9billion resulting from the bad investments and to shore up its reserves following the purchase of ABN AMRO.

On 13 October 2008, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a UK government bailout of the financial system.

[23][24] In 2008, RFS Holdings completed the sale of a portfolio of private equity interests in 32 European companies managed by AAC Capital Partners to a consortium comprising Goldman Sachs, AlpInvest Partners and the Canada Pension Plan for $1.5 billion through a private equity secondary market transaction.

[27] On 10 February 2010, RBS announced that branches it owned in India[28] and the United Arab Emirates were to be rebranded under its name.

The remaining parts of the original ABN AMRO still owned by The Royal Bank of Scotland N.V., meanwhile, were renamed, sold or closed.

[38] As part of the agreement with the European Commission on state aid in the restructuring, ABN AMRO sold Hollandsche Bank-Unie to Deutsche Bank in April 2010, together with another subsidiary, IFN Finance.

ABN AMRO acquired the specialist on-line mortgage provider Direktbank Hypotheken as part of the nationalisation and from 1 January 2011, it stopped selling these products under this brand to the public.

[39] In November 2020, ABN Amro announced it would cut 2800 jobs and sell its head offices as a plan to reduce costs, hoping to save €700 million by 2024.

[42] In October 2024, the Dutch government announced its plan to reduce its stake in ABN Amro from 40.5% to 30% in the coming months.

The deal was made to support ABN AMRO with customer growth and overall business expansion on the Temenos Banking cloud.

The green and yellow shield logo was designed by Landor Associates for ABN AMRO in 1991, and has been used as a brand for the bank and all its subsidiaries.

[46] The bank's former art collection has been managed since the end of 2007 by a dedicated foundation, the Stichting ABN AMRO Kunstverzameling [nl].

The SEC alleges that Goldman defrauded both IKB Deutsche Industriebank and ABN AMRO by its failure to disclose that the CDOs it sold to both banks were not assembled by a third party, but instead through the guidance of a hedge fund that was counterparty in the CDS transaction.

ABN AMRO had branches in Botswana, New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Dubai, all of which they have sold or are in process of closing.