Voice-over: This is Leaders in Finance, a podcast where we find out more about the people behind successful careers. We speak with the leaders of today and tomorrow to discuss their motivations, their organisations, and their personal lives. Why? Because the financial sector could use a little more honest conversation. We’d like to thank our partners for their ongoing support. They are Kayak, EY, Medirect, and Roland Berger. This extra episode of Leaders in Finance was recorded in anticipation of the Fintech Meets the Regulators event taking place on June 12th in Amsterdam, organised by DNB, AFM, and the Holland Fintech Association. Your host is Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: Welcome, listeners, to an extra episode of Leaders in Finance. Today we have a very special edition, featuring representatives from two key regulatory bodies in the Netherlands: the Dutch Central Bank and the Authority for the Financial Markets. I’m speaking with two executive board members from these institutions. First of all, Gita Salden, welcome to the Leaders in Finance podcast.
Gita: Thank you, good to be here.
Jeroen: I’m happy to be here with you at the DNB, so thanks for having me as well. And then we also have Hanzo van Beusekom, who serves on the executive board of the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets. Welcome to you as well.
Hanzo: Thank you.
Jeroen: Great to have you both here. I immediately thought about the fact that you’ve both been guests on Leaders in Finance before. I looked it up: Gita was on episode 118, and Hanzo way earlier, in episode 52. To put that into perspective, I believe we’re now at around episode 179. So, it’s been a while — but again, thank you both for joining me today. We’re talking about fintech and regulation, and we’re doing so in the run-up to the Fintech Meets the Regulators event on June 12th later this year. But before diving into the topic, I’d like to hear a bit more about both of you. Of course, listeners can go back to episodes 118 and 52, but aside from that: Gita, could you please introduce yourself a bit further and tell us what your current role entails?
Gita: Well, my current role is at the Dutch Central Bank. I’m a member of the executive board, responsible for supervision of the pension sector, the insurance sector, and the integrity of the sector. I joined DNB almost a year ago.
Jeroen: And when it comes to fintech, are there many aspects that fall under your responsibilities?
Gita: Yes, definitely. We supervise existing entities, but we also aim to accommodate new entrants and new players. We believe they help keep the system healthy — encouraging innovation and competition. So it’s very much a part of my role as well.
Jeroen: And the same question to you, Hanzo — could you tell us a bit more about yourself and your current role?
Hanzo: Yes, I’m currently a member of the executive board at the AFM. I’ve been in this position for about six years now. For the past four years, I’ve been responsible for accountancy, financial reporting, and capital markets — which takes up a significant part of my day — as well as data-driven supervision. I also led the financial technology portfolio for about five or six years. Although I handed over that responsibility to Laura a year ago, I remain actively involved with the Fintech team.
Jeroen: A question to both of you — what actually is Fintech for you? Because it’s not a term that shows up consistently in laws or regulations. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes not. So what does Fintech really mean?
Gita: That’s a good question, and I don’t have a single, definitive definition of Fintech. I think we see it as innovation driven by technology in financial services. It can take many forms — new products, new business models — but that’s the definition I would go with.
Hanzo: Yeah, I’d agree — anything that combines finance and technology generally fits the definition. I also remember Holland Fintech had this huge poster — not sure if they still use it — showing hundreds of different firms in the Fintech landscape. I think the term usually refers not just to any use of technology in finance — that would be too broad — but more specifically to new market entrants that challenge established players and drive innovation in the financial sector. So it’s a more focused definition, though still relatively broad and a bit vague — which is okay.
Jeroen: Yeah. So, you know, the terminology — enabling Fintech versus disruptive Fintech — is that something you hear a lot?
Hanzo: If you mean the underlying technology driving the different types of Fintech, if that’s what you’re getting at…
Jeroen: No, not exactly. What I actually mean is more in terms of competition. For example, you have the major banks, and then you have new players entering the market trying to compete with them — that’s what I’d call disruptive Fintech. And then you have Fintechs that actually enable the incumbents — helping them improve or innovate, rather than challenging them directly.
Hanzo: Right, I think you see both quite a bit. Just to name a few examples: in the Netherlands, you see Bunq growing quite large. In the payments industry, Adyen is a good example of a disruptor. But I’d say the number of fintech players that are actually tied to incumbents is probably even larger than the pure disruptors. Back in the day, most people expected the disruptors to play the dominant role. But over time, it has shifted a bit. It’s now more of an ecosystem — a few disruptors, yes, but actually quite a few enablers, if you want to make that distinction. Do you agree, Gita?
Gita: Yes, absolutely. I’d say especially in the domain of payment services. You see a lot of fintechs driven not just by technology, but also by regulation. I think the Payment Services Directive, with its open-access approach, really stimulated innovation in that space.
Hanzo: People waited a long time for it, but it’s been around for a few years now, and it’s going well. Just as an example — I recently redid part of my mortgage because I moved house. I’ve done this process three times now: ten years ago, five years ago, and just recently. And while it’s not pure fintech — depending on your definition — you can really see the underlying technology used by the incumbent banks has changed dramatically. Ten years ago, I had to go to the branch, sit through a physical meeting that took four hours, and I always forgot that one essential document, so I’d have to go back home and start over. Five years ago, I could already do it over Zoom — no physical meetings. This time around, there were no physical meetings and no paper mail at all. Everything was done via a digital portal, where I could upload documents directly. It was still a bit cumbersome, to be honest. Funny story: the mortgage advisor said something like “This is because of AFM and DNB,” and of course, he could see who I was and where I worked — so we both didn’t say anything, but we both knew. But the point is: there’s a lot of technological progress happening within the incumbents as well. So it’s not just the fintechs pushing innovation.
Jeroen: What do you think? What will it look like in five years?
Gita: Well, maybe you’re asking the wrong person. I think people in the industry probably know better, so I’m curious what they would tell you. Of course, we monitor trends and developments, and a lot of it is about technology. It’s not only AI; it’s also blockchain. We’re seeing developments in embedded finance, decentralised finance, and AI agents. These are the trends we follow just to stay aware of what’s happening in the sector. But to really say, “This is what the financial landscape will look like in 10 or 15 years”—well, you’d have to ask someone else. I wouldn’t dare make that prediction.
Hanzo: I would.
Gita: You would? Okay, Hanzo, please tell me.
Hanzo: I think process innovation will go further. Just to give an example—it was still a cumbersome process. I had to upload like 20 different files, many of them with the same information repeated five times across the system. I was really hoping for a FinTech solution that does digital identity extremely well, keeping all my privacy-sensitive data in one secure place. If that could be done nationally, great—but even if it’s a commercial operator, I’d probably go for it. And if that system could connect with the bank I did my mortgage with, it would be fantastic. Because honestly, the process was still very clunky. I work at a regulator, I have an academic background—and even for me, it was tough. Reading through everything and dealing with the process was really challenging. So, yes, making the process more fluid and reducing the amount of repetitive information—that’s where I see real potential for improvement. I don’t think the basic needs of consumers will change that much. People will still want mortgages and car loans. It’s the tech layer that will evolve around those needs. And I completely agree with Gita on the market structure: there could be large takeovers or new players entering, but that’s not for us to predict.
Gita: What I do hope is that we’ll see more of a truly European landscape developing. If anything, I’d say there’s still work to do to create a fully integrated market—with a single rulebook, so we’re not dealing with different regulations in each member state. We also need more risk capital. What we hear from the FinTech industry is that scaling up is hard. If you want to grow, you need capital, and that’s difficult to access—not only in the Netherlands but across Europe. So my ambition would be to move away from just a Dutch landscape and towards a more European one, in terms of scale and opportunity.
Voice-over: This is Leaders in Finance with Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: Let me get back to fintech, because there are a lot of questions I could ask—follow-ups that pop into my mind. But let’s come to that in a moment. First, two very basic questions. One may be easy, one super difficult. So first the easy one. Could you, for listeners who aren’t so familiar with the Dutch regulatory landscape, explain the difference between the AFM and the DNB, and why there are two organisations?
Gita: So that’s the simple one.
Jeroen: That’s the simple one. So be ready for the difficult one.
Gita: Okay, okay. Yeah, we have what we call the Twin Peaks model in the Netherlands. At the DNB, we’re responsible for prudential supervision. That’s basically the financial health of financial institutions and the stability of the system. So that’s our responsibility in one sentence.
Hanzo: Yeah, we are the conduct regulator. So we regulate the conduct between financial firms and the consumer. That’s a big part. There is also, of course, accountancy and financial reporting, which is slightly different. So one organisation—DNB—makes sure your money is safe. The other organisation—AFM—makes sure you’re treated well. That’s the easiest way to distinguish them. There are lots of grey areas. We cooperate extremely well. The reason we have the Twin Peaks model is because there is, of course, tension between prudential and conduct goals, and you need to mitigate those tensions. You can do that in different ways. Sometimes it’s done within one organisation. In the Netherlands, we’ve chosen to split it between two.
Jeroen: But I can imagine that as a foreign fintech wanting to enter the Dutch market, you probably have to deal with both, right? Or is there one place you can go to and then move on from there?
Gita: Yes, well, especially for fintechs and other new institutions, or people with a new business model, we started the Innovation Hub. That’s a collaboration between the AFM, the DNB, and also the ACM—the Authority for Consumers and Markets. It’s one hub. It’s the entry point. You can pose your questions: Do I need a licence? What kind of regulations apply to me, if any? Because not all fintechs need to deal with us. It depends. But most of the questions at the Innovation Hub are about information—what rules are there, and whom do we need to contact? So that’s the Innovation Hub.
Jeroen: So actually, for a fintech entering the Netherlands, that’s a great place to start. You begin there, and from that point, maybe you don’t need anything from either of you—or maybe you need one of you, or both. That’s the place to go.
Hanzo: It’s not always easy, but if you delve into it—either via the Innovation Hub, through an advisor, or just by checking the Open Book on the DNB website or the AFM site—80 to 90% of the cases can be solved relatively easily. And if you’re uncertain, give us a call. We do pick up the phone, and we’ll direct you where you need to go. So it’s not an issue at all.
Jeroen: Then the difficult question is: what makes good supervision? I’ve spoken about this before with Hanzo, and I think we concluded something along the lines of this being a potential 24-hour podcast — or even a book. But maybe for people listening from the fintech space, since that’s probably the prime target audience today, what are some of the key components of good supervision?
Gita: Well, to me, you know, why do we need supervision at all? It’s because we think it’s very difficult for a consumer or the average person to really assess their financial institution. Of course, you have your own responsibility, but at the end of the day, I think it’s important to have financial supervisors to check the financial health — is my money safe? Is it reliable? How do they operate? What is their conduct? That’s the reasoning behind supervision. Good supervision means doing our job properly, so we reduce the risk. It’s risk-based — not everything and every issue is supervised. That’s not doable, and it would also create dilemmas. If you supervise too much, you stifle innovation, you leave no room for manoeuvre. So it’s risk-based, it’s proportionate, it reduces risk — but it offers no certainty. So, you know, it’s not easy to do it well. It’s about finding the right balance.
Hanzo: Yeah, no, I agree, of course, with Gita’s approach. I like the idea that it’s a risk mitigation mechanism. For an economist, the basic argument would be: look, there are externalities — different forms of them. With prudential supervision, you’ve got externalities because you can’t see the health of a financial institution from the outside. With conduct supervision, it’s about asymmetric information — the seller knows more than the buyer. So you return to the idea of market failures, and that’s the reason why supervision exists.
And then good supervision means you need to understand what the main risks are. So, you need to be able to identify risks — and that’s not as easy as it sounds. Some risks are very visible, but others aren’t. Actually, at Gita’s place, they tend to be more complex than at ours, usually, because we have loads of medium and small-sized risks. Classical prudential crises don’t happen that often, but if they do, you’re really in trouble — it’s like a nuclear event. Whereas we’re dealing more with a steady flow of small or medium risks. So you need to identify and assess them.
And every regulator in the world is long on risk and short on staff — that’s the usual joke. So if you have a good identification mechanism, you’ll spot hundreds of risks, and you can easily get overwhelmed. Many of them are completely irrelevant. That’s where Gita’s idea of a risk-based approach comes in — you select or assess the right ones to target. And then you need to act. You have to squash a few of them.
Regulators usually like analysis and thinking, but I think both of us are pushing our organisations to get out there and do something — to actually mitigate risks in the field, without creating too many side effects. Like Gita was saying: don’t stifle innovation, and don’t overburden companies with too much bureaucracy, which doesn’t really help anyone.
Jeroen: And those are both great answers, thank you. I think if we take fintech as an example—take small fintechs—that’s often about innovation, right? For example, with your mortgage: finding solutions to make things go more smoothly, with technological innovations. But if we take that as an example, does it mean—combined with your risk-based approach, which you mentioned earlier—that if you’re still small, you’re not subject to all the regulations yet?
Gita: It could. I think I would look at it not only in terms of size, but also in terms of risk. So you can have a very large institution with small risk, and a small institution with big risk. So the risk-based approach is really about risk, not just size. And yes, a lot of regulation already provides for exemptions for fintechs, so they don’t need to fulfil all the requirements. But eventually, when the risks grow, the level of supervision also grows. And I think people expect that—and rightfully so—because while it can be nice to have a new kind of product or service, if it doesn’t deliver what you expect, it can damage the trust people have in the system.
Jeroen: Actually, a lot of fintechs that grow and become really big start asking for more regulation. You could wonder—is that to keep the competition out, or is it for another reason? But sorry, Hanzo, you wanted to add something?
Hanzo: That’s an interesting point. And no, I really like the idea about innovation. To add to Gita’s point: there are exemptions, and there’s usually quite a bit of proportionality within the rules. Most rules are actually pretty cleverly designed, and they usually have some clause saying, “you need to apply this in a proportional manner.” So that gives leeway. But to make sure we can mitigate risk and, at the same time, let the industry innovate and increase productivity, you need to have this dialogue: what’s proportional? Because you have an open norm—and your idea of proportional may not be the same as mine. So you need an intensive dialogue. If you take anything away from this podcast, I think that would be a key message: open the dialogue with the regulator. It could be the central bank, it could be the AFM. Find the appropriate channels. Don’t all email Gita or me, but there are ways to do this. Sometimes you can use an advisor—there are people who can help—but it’s also fine to do it directly if that’s what you prefer.
Jeroen: Yeah, because if you’re very critical of your own role—which is a great segue into the topic of open dialogue—how open is it really? If you’re a small fintech, is it easy to reach out to the regulator? Do you always get someone to talk to?
Gita: Well, I think we are a learning organisation—we can always do better. So if we say we try to apply the principle of risk-based proportionality, which is important to us, I’m sure we don’t always succeed in that. We do try to stay in touch with our supervised entities and learn from them—what is their experience? But it could well be that the regulation allows for exemptions and proportionality, but in practice, they don’t experience it that way. So it wouldn’t surprise me, and I know there are fintechs with different experiences. We can always do better. That’s why it’s important to have those kinds of meetings—fintech meets the regulator. It’s a two-sided dialogue.
Hanzo: I think it’s a mixed bag. It depends a bit. It’s definitely easier here than in some other countries. In some places—no names—but quite a few are more like, “Yeah, FinTech we’re more on the side of the incumbents.” They might have a sandbox, but how open are they, really? I think our stance is more open than average in Europe. “FinTech meets regulators” is a good example. We’ve been doing that for many years now. And we do see a lot of Dutch FinTech.
We organised a large conference for the introduction of MECAR. Around the same time, a friend of mine was starting a FinTech company. He asked me, “How should I go about this?” And I told him, “Don’t call me, I’m your friend—I can’t help you. I won’t touch this. Just look at all my colleagues and go to the innovation hub.”
It was interesting—because I thought we were doing quite well, but he thought we were doing terribly. We did pick up the phone and gave him an answer. It wasn’t the answer he wanted, and it took a couple of weeks. But in my book, that’s pretty good. At the end of the day, we’re a government bureaucracy. We’re independent. We work on a civil service timeline, and a couple of weeks for a decent answer is reasonable.
But he expected an answer the next day or the day after. And the response was something like: “You need to talk to an advisor or get legal help and figure it out.” That’s the downside of a podcast like this—it might sound like you just email the innovation hub and they solve everything for you. But the reality is: we might say, “This isn’t really new innovation. You can start it. These are the rules you’ll run into. It’s your responsibility to figure it out. Go find help and make sure you comply.”
That’s a standard reply you might get. If your expectation is that we’ll solve your legal and compliance issues so you can launch next week, then we’re starting from a different place. We need to be clear about that. The responsibility lies with the FinTech players. There’s commercial advice out there—we’re not your consultant.
If you face a dilemma that your consultant or legal advisor can’t help with, and it’s genuinely new and innovative, and we need to think it through and give you guidance—then yes, that’s where we step in. But there are constraints.
Jeroen: No, sure, that makes total sense. But ultimately, it’s about communication. Are you able to get in touch and receive feedback—relatively quickly? Of course, “quick” means different things to different people, but ideally, within a few weeks, you want clarity on what you’re planning to do. That’s the key. It’s not about being told “no” or getting caught up in regulation—it’s about timely feedback.
The reason you seem to think FinTech is important—is that mainly because of innovation, or are there other reasons?
Gita: It’s not just about innovation. I see it as an instrument. It’s about economic growth and a healthy financial system. A diverse financial landscape matters for resilience. A thriving FinTech industry also means jobs and better services for people. So there are lots of reasons why I feel strongly about it. Innovation and FinTech are vital for the economy.
Jeroen: So—growth, diversity, innovation, jobs. That’s already a great list. I agree. I’ve worked several years in the UK, and what I saw there was very interesting. In my opinion, there was a very, very close relationship between the regulator and the government. Almost too close. You know what I mean—it felt too close, maybe.
What’s your view? How close can a regulator be to the government? Especially when it comes to promoting the country and attracting companies. I mean, obviously, the lighter your regulatory touch, the more FinTechs you attract, right? That’s probably true.
Hanzo: Yeah, I like the policy idea that you shouldn’t try to do too many things with one intervention. Regulators are meant to keep markets safe and sound. If you also give them a strong innovation or competition mandate—or a mandate to attract Dutch investment—I’d feel uncomfortable.
In the UK, the FCA has a formal mandate to promote competition and the UK market. We don’t have that. Our job is to ensure fair and transparent markets and good outcomes for consumers. That’s already a tough job. You’d make our lives harder if we also had to make sure FinTech is always happy and thriving. Not just for me personally, but also for my team.
Let’s take “Buy Now, Pay Later” as an example. We have a nuanced but generally critical view. We think it’s risky. We can see why people use it, but in all honesty, we think the risks outweigh the benefits. And it’s here—it exists. So every now and then, you’ll see reports from us or others pushing back on those providers: “Look, you’ve created loopholes the size of trucks that allow underage people to use this service—which is illegal. Please close those loopholes, yesterday.”
That’s a firm conversation. I think most of those loopholes are now closed—or in the process. But imagine if I also had a mandate to attract big FinTechs, with politicians breathing down my neck—that would have made that conversation much harder. They could’ve said, “Well, your board member just said we’re very welcome in the Netherlands—so why are you making it harder for us?” There are different agencies for that.
Jeroen: Okay, so you’re not joining trade missions as a regulator?
Hanzo: No, no way. I wouldn’t do that.
Gita: No, and I would say, you know, there could be conflicting ideas behind having that mandate—around competition or innovation. At the same time, I think we both feel responsible for ensuring that our prudential and conduct supervision doesn’t hinder things.
Hanzo: I agree.
Gita: That’s something different than having a separate mandate.
Hanzo: Competition is a bit of a you could do competition, I can see that. And that’s sort of—okay, it’s with the ACM in the Netherlands—but if it were with DNB or AFM, I’d have an issue with promoting the Dutch financial landscape. That would be difficult.
Jeroen: Because—these are my words—but ultimately, there are some very clear boundaries, and then there’s also a fine line between having a sandbox, promoting FinTech, having an innovation hub, and all those things. You still want to be attractive—also to FinTechs from other countries—to come here. But at the same time, you’re ultimately here to safeguard us, all of us, right? From financial breakdown or anything else.
Hanzo: I think you say it very well. Nothing that’s interesting in life is black and white—there’s a bunch of greyish colours. I really favour the innovation hub. I think there’s a ton of things we can do to be more sensible and more responsible as regulators without jeopardising the main mission—actually maybe even helping it. But if I were faced with contradicting missions at the highest level, that would be difficult for me.
Jeroen: Could it also be, sometimes, a bit scary? Because you have, for example, the banking landscape—it’s no secret that a few banks have the largest share of clients banking with them. But could it be scary when a new kid on the block comes in? It could be a bank, an insurer, or another player in the payments industry. I mean, the Adyens of this world have grown really, really large. As a regulator, do you also sometimes find it a bit scary when a new player enters a market that’s been dominated by a few incumbents for a very long time?
Gita: I wouldn’t say scary. I think the financial landscape evolves. It’s different today than it was ten years ago, and it will be different again in ten years’ time. What’s up to us is to be able to recognise new developments and trends at an early stage—so don’t be too late. Be aware of the risks. You know, regulation always has a signalling function—to the ministry and to the law-making entities in Europe. Because when you regulate something, usually the risks pop up somewhere else—in the non-banking financial sector, in crypto. So the challenge is to stay alert to where the risks appear.
Voice-over: This is the Leaders in Finance podcast with Jeroen Broekema.
Jeroen: I think your colleague Laura van Geest at the AFM always says, “You can learn from fire at your neighbour’s.” One of her favourite remarks. So I think that’s maybe a segue—before we wrap up with a couple of final questions—into something more international. How does the Netherlands do from a FinTech perspective? How do we compare, maybe from a regulatory point of view, to other countries—Europe, or even globally? Do you have a feel for that? I mean, you’ve both travelled, you’ve seen other regulators
Hanzo: It depends a bit. I think it’s always difficult to ask us—we should maybe do a survey where fintech meets the regulatory crowd. What do they think? You might get a more nuanced view, or even a more critical one. Honestly, I think fintechs sometimes find it difficult to deal with the Dutch central bank or with the AFM—sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for not-so-good reasons. So it’s a mixed bag.
I think, yes, we can do better. Sometimes expectations don’t match what can reasonably be expected from a government agency like a central bank—or ours. If I compare it to other European countries, some really go all in on the fintech scene. You see it in Estonia, and occasionally in France. There are also a couple of Mediterranean islands where we think, “Hmm.”
We do have a passporting regime, of course, and we’re seeing increasing European harmonisation in supervisory practice. So we’re not doing badly. Internationally, you see a few striking examples—like the U.S., which is conducting a very interesting live experiment, pushing crypto quite aggressively. We’re taking a much more conservative view on crypto. Yes, we regulate it, but we think people—especially on the retail side—should be extremely cautious. There’s huge risk compared to traditional finance, and I don’t think it’s well understood.
The U.S. is going full-speed with crypto. You can take different views on that. Singapore is also extremely interesting—and completely uncopyable. We simply can’t replicate it. The Monetary Authority of Singapore is a single-peak regulator—central bank and financial markets regulator in one—and it’s very close to the government. Plus, it has full sovereignty, so it can do its own thing. There, they can create a sandbox and actually change the rules specifically for that sandbox. That’s something we can’t and won’t do.
As a result, they can really target specific areas. You see a very thriving fintech community. If you go to a fintech conference in Singapore, you’ll see 50,000 people. I spoke to someone from the Financial Market Authority in India—he said, “50,000? That’s nothing. We get 100,000.” Typical. So I have to go there to see if he’s right. But it’s countries like that—with full sovereignty and no EU constraints—where you see this kind of development. We’re part of the 27, for better or worse.
Gita: I think I saw a list of the top 10 players in fintech—and we weren’t in it. No, we weren’t. It was more like Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, the United States, the UK
Jeroen: As in, best places to do business?
Gita: Something like that. They asked the fintech industry. I think we can learn different things from each of those players.
Jeroen: And it’s obviously not only about regulation, right? A lot of other factors are involved.
Gita: I think it’s also about infrastructure.
Jeroen: Cost of living, infrastructure, talent, capital
Gita: Market scale, level of digitalisation There are a lot of elements. A talented pool of people. So it’s not only about regulation.
Hanzo: It’s a good place—just not the best place.
Gita: Still, it’s a good idea. We should post that question on the 12th of June.
Jeroen: We’re actually expecting numbers like in India or Singapore for this.
Gita: We have plenty of room—so that’s not the limitation.
Jeroen: That’s true.You have a great building. I definitely have to add that. One other international question. Is it still the case that you’re not adding rules on top of what already comes from Europe? Because I’ve often heard from your colleagues that the Dutch supervisory or regulatory entities try not to add anything beyond what’s already decided in Europe.
Hanzo: Yes, that’s our stated position. I believe it’s the same for the central bank. The official line is that we try to limit gold-plating, as it’s called — adding to EU rules — to an absolute minimum. We think that’s very important. A few years ago, when we deviated from that approach, we saw how quickly regulatory arbitrage could happen within the passporting regime. One or two retail brokers relocated because there was a slight variation in the application of MiFID rules. People move not only for that reason, but it certainly plays a role. So yes, we try to influence the European process as much as we can, but once the outcome is there, we are order-takers.
There are one or two exceptions. For example, we have a full commission ban in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which we strongly support. We believe that’s extremely important for consumers. Yes, it can be a nuisance to pay directly for advice — we understand that. But the upside is that you become the principal of the advice, and the advisor is more likely to act in your best interest. That’s not always the case in other European countries. So we stick with that. Otherwise, we fully support a level playing field.
Gita: Yes, for the reasons Hanzo mentioned — regulatory arbitrage simply doesn’t work. If we want one European market, we need the same rules and regulations. That goes not only for Level 1 — the directives and regulations — but also for Level 2 and 3, which are developed by the European Banking Authority or EIOPA, ESMA.
Hanzo: On the prudential side, you could already see this shift with the SSM ten years ago. We got more of a level playing field in the operational aspects of supervision. And now, we’re seeing the same thing on the conduct side. ESMA is playing an increasingly important role in ensuring a level playing field — not just in the rules, but also in how those rules are applied in practice.
Jeroen: I want to thank you both for taking the time to speak with me and with my audience. Is there anything we’ve missed — particularly around fintech or in the lead-up to the Fintech Meets the Regulator event on the 12th of June? Anything I should have asked but didn’t?
Hanzo: No, I think it was a really good interview. I enjoyed it very much. I’m definitely looking forward to Fintech Meets the Regulator. One of the risks we face is that we get stuck in our own building. The central bank has this wonderful open floor where people can walk in, but even then, we risk getting caught in our own worldview and speaking mostly to our own people.
So I really look forward to meeting the fintech crowd — and so does the rest of the board. I do visit fintech companies now and then, so if you think we should come by, just drop us a line. We might come, or we might send someone else. Either way, we think it’s important to stay in touch.
Jeroen:Anything to add, Gita?
Gita: We are curious about what is happening in the market. We want to understand and to learn. We have a role to play as a supervisor, but we can have a constructive and open dialogue—and we should. So we should be open to that. Fintech Meets the Regulator is one event, but also throughout the year, please let us know.
Jeroen: You’re very clear that you’re open to communication. Of course, with the disclaimer—not everyone. I mean, you’re very busy people, so I understand that. But maybe, Gita, we can add to your list of four, right? You talked about why fintech is important: growth, a diversified landscape, innovation, jobs. And maybe the fifth one is to be in early contact and see what’s going on in the market. So that might be the fifth reason.
Gita: Yes, yes.
Jeroen: Interesting. Thank you so much—Hanzo van Beusekom and Gita Saldem, both on the executive boards of the AFM and the Dutch Central Bank—for taking the time. I’m pointing at it now, but I brought you a small present, which I’ll give you. Listeners can’t see it, but I’m pointing at it, and I’ll give it to you right after this podcast. Again, I’m very much looking forward to seeing you both again at this event. And for now, thank you so much.
Hanzo: Thanks, Joroen.
Gita: Thank you.
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