NETHERLANDS - Klaas Knot, a former director of pension supervision, has been appointed by the Dutch cabinet as the new president of pension supervisor De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), finance minister Jan Kees de Jager has confirmed.

Knot - currently director financial markets and deputy treasurer at the Treasury - had been nominated by DNB's supervisory board as successor of Nout Wellink, whose second seven-year term is to end on 1 July this year.

Knot, 44, has been director supervision at DNB between 2004 and 2009, and was earlier department director at the Pension and Insurance Chamber (PVK), the initial pension supervisor.

He also worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund. Currently, Knot is also part-time professor  of money and banking at Groningen University.

Outgoing president Nout Wellink has been criticised because of his handling of the sale and subsequent break-up of ABN AMRO Bank and the collapses of Iceland's Icesave and Dutch DSB Bank.

Ronald Gerritse, chairman of Dutch supervisor Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM) is supporting the appointment of Knot, said his spokesman, who added that Knot is considered to be an excellent manager.

At the Pension Federation - the umbrella body of the pension funds' lobbying organisations VB, OPF and UvB - nobody was available for a comment.
 

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