The Dutch regulator De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) has announced a survey looking at how much time is spent on adhering to regulation, supervision and reporting by pension funds and some defined contribution vehicles.

The survey – part of a wider study into unintended effects of regulation – focuses on whether trustees have enough time to carry out strategy and risk management. As well as pension funds and PPI – low-cost DC arrangements – insurers and banks will also be surveyed.

During the first phase of the study, DNB consulted approximately 20 representatives of financial institutions and lobbying organisations, including the Pensions Federation.

The federation highlighted the multitude of theme surveys conducted by the watchdog, as well as the consequences of the Europe-wide derivatives legislation EMIR.

DNB has now concluded that it also wants to know more about any unintended consequences of stricter capital requirements as well as potential market distortion as a result of regulation.

In its additional survey, the regulator is to ask questions about the proportionality of supervision, and whether supervision and reporting requirements match the scale of individual pension funds.

Some small schemes have indicated that supervisory methods did not take into account the size of a pension fund.

DNB also said it wanted to know which types of reporting were perceived as useful, and how much effort it takes to gather the desired information.

The watchdog also called on the financial institutions to present concrete examples of supervision overshooting the target.

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