ABN Amro Bank is closing its custodial service operation in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). The unit, which offers safekeeping of share certificates and other evidence of asset ownership for fund managers and other business customers, employs seven people. It is small and marginally profitable, but requires significant investment in information technology. Customers are being informed and they will be offered placements with other custodial service providers.

Confirming the decision, ABN Amro's chief executive in Ireland, Mr Anton Dikken, said the bank planned to concentrate on its core investment banking, transaction services, treasury and fixed income trading. "We will focus on these areas and will be making significant investment in them. In the strategic game there is no place for local custodial business," he said.

The ABN Amro Bank in the IFSC is a branch of the Dutch ABN Amro group which has a global custodial services operation. Mr Dikken said that in the Irish market, this "local business was best left to local players".

Some of the employees in the unit would leave the bank while others would move into the private banking unit, he said. ABN Amro, which moved into the IFSC last year, employs about 200 people. When ABN Amro entered the Irish market in 1972, it was the first continental European bank to set up in Ireland. The ABN Amro group was formed from the merger in 1990 of ABN Bank and Amro Bank, the two largest international banks in the Netherlands.