ABN Amro has more than 2,000 people working full-time on tracing fraud, money laundering and other financial crime, chief executive Kees van Dijkhuizen said at the presentation of the bank’s annual results on Wednesday.

The total, around 9% of the workforce, is twice the number of financial crime investigators employed by the bank six months ago. Checking on compliance was stepped up last August and Van Dijkhuizen expects the programme to be completed in 2022.

Last August it emerged that the Dutch central bank had ordered ABN Amro to look at all five million retail customers and in September, the public prosecution office said it was launching a criminal investigation into the bank.

The investigation is being carried under Dutch laws on money laundering and the financing of terrorism known as Wwft.  ABN Amro is suspected of falling to report suspicious transactions over a longer period, as required to do so by law.

ABN Amro booked net profit of €2bn last year, 13% down on 2018 and well below expectations. Low interest rates and bad loans outside the Netherlands were largely behind the downturn.