[2] It was originally founded by King William I, and has been since transformed into a state-owned public limited company (Dutch: naamloze vennootschap, abbreviated NV).

Nearly a century later in 1968, as the bank has left the building for its new seat, it was taken over by the University of Amsterdam which had long been established just nearby, and subsequently repurposed as the location of the Allard Pierson Museum, which opened there in October 1976.

Architect Marius Duintjer [nl]'s stark design of 1961 consisted on a low square base and a rectangular office tower.

In the late 1980s, as the bank was running out of space, it was complemented with a second, oval tower designed in 1984 by architects Jelle Abma [nl] and Marc a Campo, whose construction was finished in 1989.

In a comprehensive renovation during the early 2020s, the oval tower was demolished and the base remodeled to return the building to an exterior appearance more similar to the original one of the 1960s.