Answer ... The Fintech landscape has matured in the Netherlands over the past few years. Amsterdam is the most important hub for fintech companies, followed by the technical university cities (Delft, Eindhoven and Twente), which have their own incubators.

An infographic by Holland Fintech reveals that the Netherlands is home to all sorts of fintech companies – both more traditional ones, of which Adyen is the prime example, and more specialised ones, such as Bitfury, one of the world’s leading miners (https://hollandFintech.com/featured/dutch-Fintech-infographic/).

Brexit has resulted in the transfer of UK-based fintech companies to the Netherlands, and in particular to Amsterdam, attracted by its high-tech infrastructure, ease of communication, welcoming environment, historic city and canals, and longstanding financial industry (it is home to the oldest stock exchange in the world).

As regards legislative reforms, it is not expected that fintech-specific legislation will be drawn up in the near future. The existing legal framework has thus far appeared sufficient to cover fintech developments. That said, we expect that blockchain and distributed ledger technology applications, as well as the use of artificial intelligence, and the increased cyber risks involved, will receive the most attention from the Dutch legislature and regulators in the coming 12 months. To the extent that fintech solutions fall under the scope of the existing EU regulatory framework, not much is expected from Dutch policymakers: they will rather wait and see what their colleagues on a European level (such as the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council) come up with.