On May 17, the Ministry of Finance published the draft legislative proposal "AFM Supervisory Reporting Act. This bill aims to create a legal authority for the Financial Markets Authority (AFM) for data-driven supervision. We indicated in our response of June 28 that we do not support the introduction of a reporting obligation as included in the draft bill.
While we understand that AFM needs information from financial institutions in order to determine whether they comply with legal obligations, we believe the bill is unnecessary to achieve this goal. For this reason, we have prepared a response together with our members.
Necessity, legitimacy and proportionality
We see no need to introduce additional reporting requirements for asset managers, among others. We believe that the AFM does not have a mandate for this and should be satisfied with the general statutory information power. We also believe that the examination of whether the proposed reporting obligation is proportionate is insufficiently substantiated in the bill.
Privacy and industry impact
The proposed reporting obligation inevitably leads to additional ICT costs and system adjustments at financial companies. Precisely because the reporting obligation involves consumer data that must be separated from privacy-sensitive data. This requires system adjustments and additional investments. We are also concerned about whether privacy is always guaranteed.
Goldplating
The bill is a form of "goldplating" that is undesirable. It is important that financial firms established in the Netherlands should not be put at a disadvantage relative to their competitors abroad as a result of this bill. If data-driven supervision is to be introduced, it should be done at the European level and not at the national level.
