The break up of Fortis began today when the Dutch Government bought the Belgo-Dutch financial group’s Netherlands operations in a €16.8 billion (£13 billion) rescue deal. The company is already partially state-owned, after the governments of Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg each took a stake in Fortis at the weekend at a cost of €11.2 billion.

The new agreement, hammered out on Thursday night after talks between the three governments, came after stock markets closed. Fortis shares ended the day down 0.79 per cent at €5.42 on Euronext.

Wouter Bos, the Dutch Finance Minister, described the deal as an “extraordinary intervention” made necessary after Fortis’s funding difficulties worsened during the week.

Yves Leterme, the Belgian Prime Minister, admitted yesterday that the decision to offload the Dutch banking and insurance business on the Dutch Government was necessary to keep the bank afloat. "This measure is temporary: once the international financial system has settled, the institutions will be privatised," the Government said in a statement.

Filip Dierckx, Fortis’s chief executive, said: “It’s clear that by this sale we are going to improve again our financial position and we can then also further build our activities in Belgium and outside Belgium.” The deal includes the retail and commercial banking business that Fortis acquired as part of a Royal Bank of Scotland-led consortium last year.

Jan-Peter Balkenende, the Dutch Prime Minister, said that the country had not yet decided what to do with the assets. ING, Fortis’s Dutch rival, was seen as the most likely private sector bidder for the business but decided mid-week not to make a move.

The deal will override the Dutch part of the weekend’s agreement, which saw the three governments each take a stake in Fortis’s local banking activities. Fortis’s Belgian insurance and banking businesses, plus the international insurance business, are all that remain of the group. Belgium and Luxembourg will retain their 49 per cent stakes in the banking operations.

Fortis was the first continental victim of the credit crunch to be taken into government ownership. It bought into ABN Amro at the top of the market, paying €24.4 billion for its share of the Dutch bank as part of a €72 billion buyout.

In order to prop up its balance sheet, in June the bank was forced into an €8.3 billion capital raising programme, including a €1.5 billion rights issue, scrapping its interim dividend and selling assets. Jean Paul Votron, chief executive, was ousted by infuriated shareholders, after the bank’s stock lost 80 per cent of its value.

The agreement with the Dutch Government is likely to come as a small relief to Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders, who had been concerned that the bank had some residual exposure to the ABN assets held by Fortis.

After the acquisition of ABN, the assets were placed in a holding company called RFS, of which RBS retains control. Each asset is only released from RFS into the hands of one of the three banks when the Dutch financial regulator gives permission, having judged that that each piece is ready for integration.

The Netherlands business and ABN’s private bank, both of which were due to go to Fortis, and some shared head office functions, are the only remaining pieces of ABN left in RFS. RBS had reassured investors that, even if Fortis failed to sell the ABN assets, they would not end up on the Scottish bank’s books. But RBS’s shares underperformed the sector all week as a result.

Meanwhile, Iceland said that it planned to introduce measures next week to bolster financial stability.

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