The Dutch Pension Federation has called for more cooperation between regulators to ensure that supervisory costs for the pensions industry are kept to a minimum.

The Minister of Finance in the Netherlands has informed the House of Representatives and Senate about the new cost framework for 2025 – 2028 for regulators De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) and the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM).

DNB’s cost framework showed that, following the transition to the new pension system, the structural supervision costs for the pensions sector will be reduced to the level prior to the switch.

However, AFM’s cost framework showed that the cost framework will be increased “significantly” due to the various behavioural supervision tasks for the AFM during and after the transition.

While the Pension Federation acknowledged that additional staff were needed during the transition to the new pension system, it called for the regulators to urgently strengthen their cooperation to limit costs.

“With regard to the AFM cost framework, it is unclear and insufficiently transparent which cost increases will be borne by the pension sector,” commented Pension Federation chair, Ger Jaarsma. “Clarification is really needed there.

“Given the trends facing the sector, such as digitalisation, sustainability and consumer protection, we urgently call on DNB and AFM to further improve mutual cooperation so that supervisory costs for the pension sector are kept to a minimum. These costs are ultimately borne by workers and retirees.”

The Pension Federation said it endorsed the Minister of Finance’s recognition of the social importance of supervision, but argued that a reconsideration of the government contribution, which was abolished in 2015, would have made “perfect sense”.

Prior to 2015, AFM and DNB were partly funded by the government but, since its abolition, supervisory costs for the pensions sector have “only increased”, according to the federation.

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