* Fortis Bank Nederland unit fined 72,000 euros
* Regulator says it granted too much credit to cardholders
* Fines cover period after state control (Adds no appeal, background on state institutions)
By Ben Berkowitz
AMSTERDAM, Sept 22 (Reuters) - The Dutch market regulator AFM has fined a credit card issuer owned by nationalised Fortis Bank Nederland 72,000 euros for giving out too much credit after the company was taken over by the government.
The fine was the latest blow to the Dutch government, which has faced growing criticism over the way it handled its bailout of the country's financial system last year.
Last week, the EU rebuked the government over aid it gave ING, a court ruled in favour of disgruntled former Fortis shareholders and a planned sale of some of ABN AMRO's assets collapsed.
AFM said in a statement it had fined International Card Services (ICS), a unit of Fortis Bank Nederland, for violating credit card application rules designed to keep consumers from borrowing too much.
Those rules came into force on Oct. 1, 2008, days before Fortis was nationalised.
The market regulator said the violations were committed between Nov. 1, 2008 and April 7, 2009. It said ICS did not adopt the new standards until April 7, 2009, after AFM pointed out its lack of compliance.
The regulator said ICS had the right to appeal the ruling but an ICS spokeswoman said the company had no plans to do so.
A Fortis Bank Nederland spokesman referred all calls to ICS.
On Thursday, a court ruled that shareholder group FortisEffect could compel witnesses, potentially including the prime minister, to testify over the bank's nationalisation.
That same day Deutsche Bank backed out of a deal to buy a package of assets from ABN AMRO, which came into state control as part of the Fortis takeover.
That sale was mandated by the EU as part of the state's plan to merge ABN AMRO and Fortis Bank Nederland. (Editing by Hans Peters and Lin Noueihed)