On 24 March 2020, the Dutch Minister of Finance (the Minister) sent the Further Memorandum of Reply (nadere memorie van antwoord) with regard to the Act implementing the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5MLD) (Implementatiewet wijziging vierde anti-witwasrichtlijn, the Act) to the Dutch Senate.

In the Further Memorandum of Reply the Minister answers a number of questions raised by members of the Dutch Senate, including, but not limited to the following:

• Is it correct that the envisaged Decree implementing 5MLD (Implementatiebesluit wijziging vierde anti-witwasrichtlijn) contains requirements that are not part of 5MLD? If so, which requirements does this concern?
• Can the government confirm that the requirements contained in the Decree implementing 5MLD entail a greater administrative burden and therefore costs for smaller companies in particular, compared to what was provided for in 5MLD?
• Does the government share the view of certain interest groups that the aforementioned means that additional national requirements are added to what is set out in 5MLD? If not, why not? Why was it not possible to include the elements now contained in the Decree implementing 5MLD in the Act?
• Is it possible for the government to indicate the extent of money laundering based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative insights? How big is the problem and what are the expectations about the use of this [crypto] currency? Is there any data available in an EU context?
• The Dutch Central Bank (De Nederlandsche Bank, DNB) has pointed out that there may be significant supervisory costs and that these costs are not mentioned in the explanatory notes to the Act. This means that innovative and smaller Dutch parties in the crypto and blockchain ecosystem are lagging far behind with competitors in the rest of Europe, and that it is not unlikely that these foreign big-tech players with deep pockets will ultimately remain to serve the Dutch market. Does the government share DNB’s view?