Netherlands is soon going to open a special campus where banks and financial companies will come together to explore the blockchain technology.
“Fintech Ambassador” Willem Vermeend made the announcement at a conference organized by Holland Fintech and De Nederlandsche Bank, Volkskrant reported. The campus is expected to launch in September, however, its location has not been disclosed yet.
Vermeend, a former minister, was appointed as fintech ambassador earlier this year by Ministers Henk Kamp of Economic Affairs and Jeroen Dijsselbloem of Finance in response to rapid pace of fintech developments and the massive impact it is expected to have in the financial industry. He liaises between the fintech sector, the government, industry and regulators and works on solving problems for technology companies in the financial sector.
Vermeend sees great potential in blockchain technology and expects it to play a major role within two to three years. He said that it is not intended that all the campus participants will use the same technology in the end, but the objective is that information and knowledge is better shared.
“There is a lot of creativity in the Netherlands. The problem is that I have spoken to twenty parties who do not know what each other is doing”, Vermeend said.
The announcement follows the recent update provided by the Dutch central bank on “DNBcoin” experiments that were conducted to better understand the working of the blockchain technology. The central bank is interested in the technology as it believes that blockchain may have implications for the overarching goal of financial stability, which primarily aims to promote the smooth functioning of the payment system, prudential supervision and oversight, and monetary policy.
