‘There is no reason to operate a bank in the Netherlands’

Topman Klaas Knot of De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) does not expect a major banking crisis in the Netherlands. “The underlying causes of the problems at banks in the US and at Credit Suisse are not happening at Dutch banks,” Knott says in a conversation with BNR.

The banking crisis elsewhere is ‘not a concern at the top of my list’, says Knott, who broke the bad news as CEO that DNB was making losses for the first time in ninety years. This is mainly due to rapid increase in interest rates.

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Banking operations

According to BNR’s house economist Han de Jong, it is plausible that the banking crisis will not spread to the Dutch banking sector. “Eventually, if a bank’s account holders all panic and withdraw their money, every bank will collapse.” But that scenario isn’t realistic, says de Jong. ‘In the Netherlands, when it was different in Silicon Valley banking, there was no reason to do that.’

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Comparisons are often made with the 2008 financial crisis. De Jong also finds similarities with that period. ‘It’s still fresh in my mind. But the differences between now and 2008 are stark. It won’t wake me up.’

The European Union has strict rules

Since 2008, due to strict supervision, the confidence of the Home Economist is important. ‘Monitoring has tightened significantly, liquidity and credit requirements have increased significantly, and that has changed in the US.’ De Jong mentions, among other things, that the US has loosened fiscal rules, but this has not happened in the EU.