ABN AMRO fined over insurance advice breaches

AMSTERDAM, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Dutch state-owned bank ABN AMRO was fined 30,000 euros ($39,580) on Monday by the Dutch stock market watchdog AFM for breaching rules on advice to customers over risk insurance policies.

Following the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States, the AFM probed in 2009 the provision of mortgages by large banks in the Netherlands and said ABN AMRO collected insufficient information from customers or inadequately based its advice on the information provided.

The advice related to life insurance or insurance products for customers to protect themselves against loss of income through loss of work due to injury, the AFM added.

ABN AMRO was fined 30,000 euros, which the bank said was based on its ability to pay.

'Being fined is a serious matter,' said John Smeets, director of products at ABN AMRO. 'We take the AFM's criticism to heart and already tightened our procedures in 2009.'

Rabobank was also fined 30,000 euros in October for breaching the same regulations and 120,000 euros for a policy that breached laws over the legal height of mortgages.

As part of an earlier investigation, financial group ING was fined 30,000 euros in February 2009 for also failing to obtain sufficient information from customers in remortgaging and taking out life insurance.

ABN AMRO said it believes it provided appropriate advice, but admitted the information gathered for these insurance policies was not always recorded in full and had decided not to appeal the AFM's fine.

(Reporting by Aaron Gray-Block; Editing by Hans Peters)

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