''De Surinaamsche Bank'' (DSB; ''Bank of Suriname'' in English) is the largest

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

. It provides

retail bank Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking (corporate ba ...

ing products such as transaction accounts,

loan In finance, a loan is the tender of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money. The document evidencing the deb ...

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners t ...

es and credit and debit cards as well as business loans.

History

Simon Abendanon founded De Surinaamsche Bank (DSB) on 19 January 1865, in

Paramaribo Paramaribo ( , , ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's p ...

, and it opened for business on 18 July 1865, in the home of one of the founders, pending construction of its own building. The Bank’s headquarters remained in Amsterdam though. Abendanon was a captain and court bailiff in Suriname. After the abolition of slavery in 1863, there was a period of monetary chaos and Abendanon saw an opportunity in creating a bank that would issue bank-notes and use the funds to finance trade. After its founding in 1826, the

Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij The Netherlands Trading Society ( or NHM) was a Dutch trading and financial company, established in 1824, in The Hague by King William I to promote and develop trade, shipping and agriculture. For the next 140 years the NHM developed a large int ...

issued banknotes. And then between 1828–1848, the West-Indische Bank issued banknotes for the Dutch West Indies. The next organizational landmark occurred in 1948, when Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij acquired DSB. Three years later, Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij, which owned all the shares of DSB, transferred DSB’s headquarters to

. In 1957, DSB formally gave up its right to issue notes to the newly formed Central Bank of Suriname. In 1964, Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij merged with De Twentsche Bank to form Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN), and the ownership of DSB transferred to the new bank. However, in 1977, the government of the Surinam Republic nostrified DSB. The government took 10% of the shares and required that the bank sell 41% to the public. ABN retained a minority position of 49%. In 2001, ABN AMRO sold its 49% holding in DSB to Assuria N.V. Assuria already owned 5.6% of DSB so the purchase gave it majority control. In 2006, the bank became involved in a scandal because the director and his predecessor were accused of illegal financial transactions. In 2016, the bank suffered a major loss, partly due to irresponsibly large loans to the Surinamese government. In November 2017, the Central Bank of Suriname warned of a bank run on De Surinaamsche Bank. A week earlier, the CBvS called on fellow banks to deposit money in an emergency fund to keep the DSB afloat. This was followed by more alarming publications about the financial situation at the bank in the press. DSB customers err on the side of caution and withdraw their money from the bank.

References

External links

web site
* {{Authority control Banks of Suriname ABN AMRO Banks established in 1865 1865 establishments in South America