Pressure mounts over ABN Amro boss Zalm

Tuesday 01 December 2009

The head of the government committee investigating the collapse of DSB bank in October will update MPs on the role of Gerrit Zalm on Tuesday morning, the Financieele Dagblad reports.

Zalm, a former finance minister who is in charge of merging ABN Amro and Fortis Nederland, worked for DSB for over a year, partly as CFO. Several newspapers have published claims that Zalm was well aware of the mis-selling of mortgages and insurance policies at DSB and defended the bank's actions to the financial sector regulators.

Today's meeting with Michiel Scheltema will take place behind closed doors, the paper said. Finance minister Wouter Bos had promised to let MPs know by December 1 if Zalm is partly to blame for DSB's bankruptcy. But the investigation is not yet over, and Scheltema is being brought in to outline the findings so far, the FD said.

MPs have called for quick answers. 'Sometimes the Netherlands seems like a banana republic,' Liberal VVD MP Frans Weekers was quoted as saying.

In a statement on RTLZ tv last week, Zalm said he was fully confident about the outcome of the investigation.

The Telegraaf reported on Monday that Bos has already been sounding people out about replacing Zalm.

© DutchNews.nl

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