[2] As soon as the AMRO Bank was set up, it set about gaining market share in business lending, leasing and factoring as well as in medium to long term credit.

To do this it established the Nationale Bank voor Middellang Krediet business unit to provide medium to long term credit.

Another acquisition was Utrecht based Bank Flaors & Ko, which had been in existence since 1691.

The aim was create an entity that was large enough to work at an international level.

[3] It was only when the Dutch Government announced that it was relaxing its merger rules for financial institutions that ABN and AMRO Bank were able to seize the opportunity to merge and to create a bank large enough to fulfill these ambitions.