WILLEMSTAD - Member of Parliament for the MAN party Giselle MC William has written questions to outgoing Prime Minister Eugene Rhuggenaath about the closure of ABN Amro accounts. The Dutch Parliament and the Kingdom Relations Committee will also receive a copy of the letter.

Mc Willam believes that a large group of Kingdom citizens are being discriminated against within the Kingdom. They cannot use the same banking services as people in the European part of the Kingdom. The Member of Parliament asks in the letter whether Rhuggenaath is aware that the bank does make an exception for people who live in Aruba or Switzerland.

The closure of bank accounts comes as no surprise, ABN Amro announced early last year that it would close the accounts of people who are not registered in Europe. For example, many Curaçaoans could lose their ABN Amro bank account. ABN Amro started closing the accounts of customers outside the European Economic Area (EEA) in early 2020.

Mc William asks the Prime Minister to ensure that Curacao and Sint Maarten are also included on the exception list. She wants him to contact the Dutch government to push for a two-year moratorium to continue the banking relationship or to look for other solutions.

The reason for closing the accounts is that the customers outside of Europe are too expensive and there is a risk of fines. Many residents of Curacao have an ABN Amro bank account to receive, for example, pension or AOW (National Old Age Pensions Act) payments.

Last week it was announced that the bank is settling for 480 million euros with the Public Prosecution Service in the Netherlands. ABN Amro was suspected of doing too little to combat money laundering.