Public trust in Dutch financial institutions, including pension funds, has remained stable over the past year, according to De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) but trust in pension funds is lower than that of banks and insurers.

Its survey of more than 2,200 Dutch households found that in 2022, 51 per cent of those surveyed had either fairly high or high trust in financial institutions, which is comparable to results from the previous survey in 2021.

Specifically, the survey shows that Dutch households have trust in the financial health of banks, insurers and pension funds. Such trust had sharply dropped in the 2008 credit crisis but has been gradually regaining ground ever since.

Despite this, trust in pension funds is slightly lower than trust in banks and insurers. Seventy per cent of respondents in 2022 were mostly or fully confident that Dutch banks would always be able to repay their funds held on deposit. A similar percentage applies to confidence that insurance firms will continue to meet their payment obligations. For pension funds, however, households have slightly less confidence in their ability to meet their commitments to pensioners, although this confidence has increased in recent years.


In contrast to overall confidence in financial institutions, trust in national politics, the civil service and business continued to decline in 2022. Public trust in business is still slightly higher than trust in financial institutions, however. A year ago, 42 per cent reported having trust in politics, against 29 per cent now. Trust in big technology companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon remained the lowest at 19 per cent.

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