ABN Amro

This bank can trace its Middle East ancestry back to 1926 when its forerunner NTS opened the first ever bank in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Hollandi Bank. Today ABN Amro still has a 40% stake in Saudi Hollandi Bank.

In the UAE, ABN Amro opened its first branch in Dubai shortly after the federation was formed in 1973. Within the UAE ABN Amro also operates branches in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, although Dubai remains the headquarters for the Middle East.

With over 30 years of experience, the bank presently offers a comprehensive range of services in retail banking, personal banking and private banking. In addition, ABN Amro has pioneered the introduction of Smart Cards into the region, launching the first-ever chip card in September 2000.

This October the bank launched its new range of banking services for the global Indian. The service allows NRIs to operate their Indian and UAE bank accounts from a single desk or over the Internet, a valuable adaptation of the latest technology to enable NRIs to look after their dependents back home.

UAE country manager Tom Zwaan comments: 'NRI banking represents an important strategic commitment on the part of ABN Amro, to deliver a product portfolio of services for the growing global Indian population without being passed from counter to counter'.

Meanwhile, ABN Amro is firmly embedded as one of the leading corporate bankers to UAE companies, and has recently introduced a pool of advanced online treasury services for its corporate clients. Only Citibank can rival ABN Amro for Net banking services for corporate customers.

Globally ABN Amro stands beside HSBC and Citibank as one of the world's truly global banks with 3,500 branches in 60 different countries, and total assets of over 543 billion euros. ABN Amro has over 10 million retail and commercial clients around the world, and assets under its management valued at 162 billion euros.

Yet the current global financial crisis has cast ABN Amro shares down to levels that some analysts think represent one of the biggest bargains in the banking sector. A price/earnings ratio of a little more than six, and a dividend of 8% is surely a snip, unless you believe that the future of this Dutch banking giant is in jeopardy.

And certainly there are question markets over the bank's exposure to the Brazilian market in these difficult times. But a default by Brazil on its debts would rock the whole banking sector, and does not really seem very likely except in a doomsday scenario.

However, this is why shares in ABN Amro are presently so cheap. Indeed, some commentators liken the situation to Citibank in the early 1990s which helped to make Prince Alwaleed bin Talal his considerable fortune. Others may make their fortune with ABN Amro stock.