Frank Elderson: Changing gears - about cycling and the future of banking

Speech by Mr Frank Elderson, Executive Director of Supervision of the Netherlands Bank, at the Netherland's Bank banking seminar, Amsterdam, 11 March 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

When I took up this job as chief supervisor for the Dutch banking sector, summer last year, I realized again how much better shape the Dutch banks are in, than the last time I was actively involved in prudential banking supervision.

You see, I was leading the DNB team responsible for supervising ABN Amro back in 2006.

I remember going to the Zuidas by bike, parking it right in front of that huge entrance of the ABN Amro building - which wasn't allowed by the way. That solitary black bicycle, against the sheer backdrop of one of the tallest sky-scrapers of Amsterdam at that time, in a way that bicycle formed an early example of transparent supervision: since everybody knew it was my bike, every time they saw it they knew the supervisor was in the building.

Of course, it's a story with a tragic undertone. The years 2006 and 2007 have a fateful ring to them. We were witnessing the tearing apart of the largest bank in the Netherlands. Less than a year after the consortium took over ABN Amro, on a sunny day people were leaving the Lehman head offices carrying cardboard boxes. The rest is history.

How totally different to the picture we observe today! Today I see a banking sector that has weathered the storm, and has emerged stronger. Smaller perhaps, but more resilient, more focused and better capitalized.