ABN Amro is to cut some 800 out of 2,500 jobs at its business banking unit CIB and pull back from its activities outside Europe.

Announcing the overhaul on Wednesday, chief executive Robert Swaak said the bank will now concentrate on ‘segments where we can achieve scale, so we will focus on the Netherlands and Northwest Europe’.

At the same time, the bank’s Corporate & Institutional Banking (CIB) will end all non-European corporate banking activities and its non-core activities are to be wound down in the next three to four years.

The bank, which is still 56% in the hands of the government, reported a net loss of €5m in the second quarter of this year, after cutting costs 8%.

Operating profit of €786 was hit by a €703m provision to cover bad debts – of which €591m was down to the CIB, including loans to bankrupt German payment processor Wirecard.

ABN Amro booked a loss of €395m in the first three months of this year, the first time in 6.5 years that the bank failed to turn a profit. Most of that too was down to the CIB, in particular problems with a US investment fund and ‘potential fraud’ involving a Singapore-based oil trader.

The bank is also still waiting for the result of a criminal investigation launched in September over alleged failures to carry out proper money laundering checks.