ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that in the Netherlands the co-operative agricultural credit banks performs better than Dutch banks during the crisis and their better performance are attributed to the innovative legal structure, corporate governance, banking policy, internal control mechanisms and market conditions. It outlines the Dutch economy highlighting the developments that were most significant to co-operative agricultural credit. The chapter then addresses the development of the agricultural co-operative banks in the first half of the twentieth century. In times of crisis, the central co-operatives devoted extra attention to liquidity and solvency. For the co-operative banks, internal control and supervision were regulated from the outset. The rapid rise in the loan capital of the central co-operatives came to a halt in the early 1930s. After a review of the period before the Second World War, the rise of the co-operative banking system in the Netherlands answered to a real demand.
