Gita Salden: Innovation we can trust - the role of De Nederlandsche Bank in regulating FinTechs
Speech by Ms Gita Salden, Executive Director of Supervision of De Nederlandsche Bank, at the conference "FinTech meets the regulators", jointly organised by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) and the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), Amsterdam, 16 June 2025.
The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.
Do you know what this is?
This is the reverse side of one of the first banknotes issued by DNB, two centuries ago.
Do you see all the names and dates written on it?
These are payment details: when people were paid with a DNB banknote, they wrote down the name of the payer and the date of payment.
If the banknote turned out to be worthless, at least they knew who to turn to for the 'real' payment.
Why did people think that was necessary?
Because money is about trust.
And the Dutch had some bad experiences with banknotes during the period of French rule of the Netherlands, when French notes were not backed by gold.
So from our founding in 1814, DNB did everything they could to win people's trust:
the new banknotes contained a promise of payment in gold or silver coins and they were signed by no fewer than four people: DNB's president, two directors and the secretary.