NETHERLANDS - Dutch pension funds and insurers have combined mortgage capital business on outstanding home loans worth €33bn, or 6% of the national market, regulator De Nederlandsche Bank has announced.

According to the regulator, the pensions sector has provided Dutch households with €1.6bn of mortgages during the first quarter of 2007.

The largest sum of these mortgages - €1.4bn - was issued by the €215bn civil service scheme ABP, along with insurers Aegon and Nationale Nederlanden, DNB said.

ABP's Dutch home mortgages portfolio, which was established in 1979, accounts for €6bn, spokesman Thijs Steger told IPE.

"However, we don't lend mortgages any longer. Since 2002, all new mortgages have been placed with Obvion, a joint venture with Rabobank.

"Because of our expertise on risk assessment, we still buy home mortgages from banks and insurers," Steger added.

The €21bn industry-wide pension fund for the metal and electro-technical engineering industry PME, also has a €1.5bn Dutch mortgages portfolio, which is being managed by PVF Achmea, PME spokesman Bram van Els confirmed.

"We have invested in the safe segment. Only 4% of the mortgages have been financed with over 100% of the execution value," he stressed.

According to Van Els, the returns of PME's mortgages portfolio has been some tenths of a percent higher than those of government bonds during the past 10 years.

But PGGM, the €86bn healthcare scheme, no longer invests in home mortgages, it made clear so its mortgages portfolio is worth just €60m, it indicated.

According to DNB, at the end of the first quarter, the balance sheets of the Dutch pension funds totalled €716bn. Industry-wide schemes and company pension funds accounted for €492bn and €202bn respectively.