Parliament wants debate on scathing SNS bank report

The Dutch parliament wants a debate on Thursday’s report on the nationalization of SNS REAAL. Dutch Parliament / Wikipedia The report criticizes the roles of both Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem and Dutch Central Bank in the nationalization of SNS in early 2013. The bank went into serious financial trouble through its property finance division, which it purchased from ABN Amro. According to report released today, the Dutch finance ministry failed to take responsibility for a restructuring of SNS after a 2008 bailout and took charge in the second half of 2012, when nationalization became unavoidable, Bloomberg News reported. The report states that the central bank should never have permitted the acquisition. In addition, the report notes that the central bank was aware that property finance division did business with clients who had links to Dutch top criminals. SNS acquired seven dubious customers from ABN Amro, which had €160 million loans, Nos reported “The Ministry of Finance omitted to act on its responsibility to make a clean sweep at SNS Reaal that had landed in difficulties as a result of the financial crisis and had been forced to appeal for state aid,” Rein Jan Hoekstra and Jean Frijns, who led the evaluation of the 2013 rescue, said in a statement handed out to reporters in The Hague today. The report mentions that the nationalization of SNS had had become unavoidable in February 2013 as no viable alternatives remained, Bloomberg reported. The central bank didn’t “sufficiently recognize the implications of a number of SNS Reaal’s acquisitions at the top of the market and the accompanying risks,” Frijns and Hoekstra said. The main conclusions of the report were endorsed by MPs from various parties, NRC said.