What happened
- Specific facts/numbers: Ledger Insights reported that De Nederlandsche Bank and the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets said Dutch law does not currently support natively digital securities, even though tokenization is possible; the article also said the European Commission proposed a possible longer-term EU-level fix through its March “28th regime” initiative.
- Institutions involved: The main institutions named are De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), the European Commission, and Dutch DLT trading or depository venues that would rely on EU passporting rules.
- Regulatory/technical context: According to the article text, the EU DLT Pilot Regime can waive some market-infrastructure rules but does not determine the legal status of a token under national law, so Dutch venues wanting to issue natively digital securities may need to structure issuance under another EU member state’s law; the article also says Germany, Luxembourg and France have already adjusted their legal frameworks.
- What to watch next: Watch for any joint Dutch government-regulator follow-up on securities law reform or for an EU-level solution tied to the proposed 28th regime; if neither advances, no concrete next milestone was identified beyond the call for legal change.
Why it matters
If the Netherlands does not update its legal framework, tokenized-securities activity could migrate to jurisdictions with clearer rules, weakening domestic market infrastructure competitiveness.
HKMA Relevance
Direct: Another central bank and market regulator have taken a concrete policy step in payments/capital-markets plumbing adjacent to HKMA’s remit by publicly calling for legal changes to support tokenized securities, a development Hong Kong authorities would plausibly assess against their own tokenization framework.