A member of ABN Amro’s supervisory board resigned with immediate effect on Thursday after his name came up in the Panama tax evasion scandal, the Financieele Dagblad and Trouw say on Thursday.

Bert Meerstadt, who had already said he would stand down this year, has been linked to a financial holding based in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven, which was set up by Mossack Fonseca, the firm at the centre of the scandal.

Meerstadt is quoted by Trouw as saying that his decision to leave is unconnected to the Panama Papers leaks and that he wants to do something else. ‘I want to prevent the bank suffering any negative effects… I will not comment further on the report in the Financieele Dagblad,’ he said.

The Dutch state still owns a majority of ABN Amro shares following its nationalisation in 2008.

Meerstadt also said he had no idea why his name has popped up. The address of the company in the shareholders’ register is his, but he did not live in it at the time, Trouw quotes him as saying.

Meerstadt was director of Dutch public railway company NS until 2013 but resigned in the fall out from the high-speed train failures.