Amsterdam - Once high and mighty, Dutch banks chastened by the credit crisis are now entangled in fierce competition for the savings of ordinary thrifty Dutch citizens.

According to statistics from the Dutch Central Bank (DNB), the Dutch had a combined 259 billion euros on private savings accounts in July 2008, a number that had been growing consistently despite the meltdown in other parts of the financial industry.

The trend marks a complete shift from the 1990s, when the Dutch stock exchange increased substantially at the expense of traditional saving, suddenly considered old-fashioned.

But all changed in 2001. First, the internet bubble burst in 2001 and many ordinary Dutch lost money. Then, more banks, including smaller foreign banks from countries like Turkey and Morocco, entered the local market.

They attracted new customers by raising their interest rates on savings accounts that did not have any preconditions.

"We grew explosively," Klaas Wilting, spokesman for DSB Bank, one of such small new banks, tells Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"It began in 2006, increased beyond our wildest expectations in 2007 and continued steadily after the unrest started on the global credit market in July 2007.

Last year, the flood of daily applications for new savings accounts massively superseded our capacity to process them on time."

New banks like DSB worked according to a different formula from the traditional depositories: most of them were online only, reducing their expenses (offices, staff).

Although traditional banks have since gone on a similar path, their savings account deals remain substantially below those from the new, small banks.

Most traditional banks offer 3.4 per cent interest, provided one holds at least 20,000 euros in the account.

Only a temporary credit deposit (CD) for 3, 6 or 12 months generates up to 4.8 per cent interest with the traditional banks, again requiring a minimum deposit.

But customers who open an account at Icesave, as the Dutch department of the Icelandic Landsbanki is called, can enjoy rates of 5.25 per cent - no strings attached.

OHRA - originally an insurance company - offers up to 7.5 per cent interest on monthly credit deposits.

Traditional Dutch banks refuse to say how many customers they lost as the number of new small banks on the Dutch market increased.

The drain on capital flowing to the major firms may only increase with the increased uncertainty about the solvency of Belgian-Dutch Fortis Bank.

Fortis took over the biggest bank of the Netherlands in October 2007, ABN AMRO, but has since then been ailing.

But if Fortis can not be trusted, then which bank can? The answer is that the Dutch do not know. There is little information available to the general public about the solvency of Dutch banks.

DNB supervises the solvency of all banks active on the local market, but does not release any rating information, its spokesman told Deutsche-Presse Agentur DPA.

The spokesman for the NVB, the umbrella association for all Dutch banks, does not have the information either.

The only information about Dutch banks comes from foreign commercial parties, like Moody's Investors Service from the US.

However, only the main Dutch banks are included on Moody's list, and even for those, the information is insufficient to provide full transparency.

Therefore ordinary Dutch rely on their own gut feeling, word of mouth and, last but not least, the highest interest rates to decide which bank to bring their money to.

One thing is certain: in the last two years, the balance of power between bank and customer has completely shifted. Previously, banks determined interests with a take-it-or-leave it attitude towards their customers.

Now, they may have to go cap-in-hand. (dpa)