Netherlands: Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

De Nederlandsche Bank remains the prudential authoriser for electronic money institution and payment institution licences under the Wft licensing framework, with DNB Good Practices guidance supplementing the statutory requirements. This standing licensing-authority allocation reflects the EEA twin-peaks supervisory model, under which the AFM leads conduct supervision, consumer credit oversight including buy-now-pay-later products, and crypto-asset service provider authorisation under MiCA. The AFM's MiCA CASP regime reached full effect on 30 December 2024, giving the Netherlands a settled conduct-authorisation framework for crypto-asset service providers alongside the traditional payments licensing track.

The most consequential development for this module is the political agreement reached on the third Payment Services Directive and its accompanying Payment Services Regulation. Formal adoption is expected in 2026, followed by an approximately eighteen-month national transposition window. Once the framework is transposed domestically, electronic money institutions currently operating in the Netherlands will need to seek reauthorisation as payment institutions, a structural change to the licensing landscape that will require affected EMIs to plan a reauthorisation pathway well ahead of the transposition deadline. This bank-PSP versus non-bank PI/EMI distinction is central to how the PSD3/PSR transition will land: DNB-supervised bank-PSPs face no equivalent reauthorisation requirement, while non-bank EMIs face a defined, time-limited transition obligation.

Outlook

The timeline to watch is PSD3/PSR's formal adoption, expected in 2026, which will start the eighteen-month transposition clock. Non-bank EMIs operating in the Netherlands should expect to begin preparing PI reauthorisation applications once the transposition legislation's shape becomes clearer, given the multi-track compliance load already building from the Instant Payments Regulation and DORA.

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

The end of the DNB/EBA transitional enforcement-restraint period on 1 March 2026 marks a material tightening of market access in the Netherlands for crypto-asset service providers whose activity touches EMT-related (e-money-token) payment services. Prior to this date, a June 2025 EBA Opinion had already clarified which EMT-transaction activities fall within PSD2 scope, but DNB extended enforcement restraint rather than immediately compelling dual authorisation. That restraint has now ended: CASPs transacting EMT-related payment services require an additional PSD2 licence, unless a Wft exemption applies or the CASP partners with an already-authorised payment service provider. This is a Confirmed, T1-sourced finding directly from DNB.

This development sits at the boundary between bank-and-non-bank market access regimes. A CASP relying solely on its MiCA authorisation, without PSD2 licensing, a Wft exemption, or a PSP partnership, now falls outside the compliant perimeter for EMT-linked payment activity — this is squarely a non-bank PI/EMI licensing question, since the PSD2 licence in question is the instrument that governs non-bank payment institutions and e-money institutions. The supervisory allocation underpinning this transition is itself twin-peaks in structure: the AFM licenses and conducts-supervises CASPs generally under MiCA, while DNB administers the PSD2/EMT enforcement-restraint transition and retains prudential oversight. This is a Probable-confidence characterisation, resting on the same T1 DNB source describing the overlap.

Firms operating in this space should treat the end of the restraint period as an active compliance deadline rather than a background development: absent one of the three carve-outs (PSD2 licence, Wft exemption, or PSP partnership), continued EMT-related payment activity now falls outside the compliant perimeter.

Outlook

The near-term marker to watch is DNB supervisory guidance or enforcement action clarifying which specific CASP business models trigger the PSD2 licensing requirement in practice, and how many CASPs currently operating on MiCA authorisation alone move to secure a PSD2 licence, establish a Wft exemption, or restructure via a PSP partnership during 2026.

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) licenses payment institutions and e-money institutions in the Netherlands, operating within capital bands of EUR 125,000 to EUR 350,000 and a statutory assessment clock of approximately thirteen weeks, though the real-world end-to-end process typically runs six to ten months. DNB operates within a twin-peaks model alongside the Autoriteit Financiele Markten, with DNB handling prudential and licensing matters and AFM handling conduct and open-banking oversight, a split relevant to both bank and non-bank payment service providers.

This licensing landscape is entering a multi-year transition. The CRD6 transposition deadline into Dutch law fell on 10 January 2026, with the third-country-branch (TCB) regime itself taking effect on 11 January 2027; the transposition deadline and the commencement date are distinct milestones, and the TCB regime's substantive effect on third-country bank branches operating in the Netherlands will not begin until the later date. Separately, the EU PSD3/PSR trilogue concluded in March 2026, with Dutch payment institutions and e-money institutions expected to migrate to a unified payment institution authorised to issue e-money status from 2027, following formal EU Parliament and Council approval and entry into force anticipated in early 2027.

Outlook

Whether DNB's existing twin-peaks licensing practice adapts smoothly to the unified PSD3 authorisation category, and how the TCB regime is administered once it takes effect in January 2027, are the two developments most likely to reshape the Netherlands' payment-licensing landscape over the coming cycles.

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

The Netherlands enters 2026 under the Capital Requirements Directive 6 transposition deadline of 10 January 2026, with the Directive's third-country-branch regime for foreign bank branches operating in the Dutch market scheduled to take effect on 11 January 2027. This gives internationally active banks and their Dutch branches a defined, if not immediate, structural planning horizon distinct from the domestic licensing track. Running in parallel, Dutch payment service providers are now subject to staged Instant Payments Regulation obligations: since 9 January 2025 they must accept instant credit transfers and apply harmonised sanctions screening, with rejection-rate reporting to De Nederlandsche Bank required from 9 April 2025, and since 9 October 2025 they must additionally offer a payee-name and IBAN verification service alongside the ability to send instant credit transfers. These obligations apply across the bank and non-bank population of Dutch payment service providers alike, reflecting the instrument's aim of harmonising instant-payment capability regardless of institutional form. The bank/non-bank distinction remains material to how each obligation bites: banks face the CRD6 transposition and third-country-branch regime as a prudential-perimeter question, while non-bank payment institutions and electronic-money institutions experience the Instant Payments Regulation primarily as a product and compliance-operations requirement rather than a licensing one. Against this infrastructural tightening, De Nederlandsche Bank fined ABN AMRO Bank N.V. 8.5 million euro on 6 July 2026 for anti-money-laundering control shortcomings spanning September 2023 to September 2024; this is carried here strictly as a Sentinel-fed regulatory-action fact establishing the intensity of DNB's supervisory posture toward Dutch banks, not as an independent financial-crime analysis, which remains outside this brief's scope.

Outlook

The CRD6 third-country-branch regime take-effect date of 11 January 2027 is the clearest near-term marker for internationally active banks operating Dutch branches, and DNB's demonstrated willingness to issue a multi-million-euro fine against a major domestic bank signals that supervisory intensity is unlikely to ease as that deadline approaches. Payment service providers, bank and non-bank alike, should treat the staged Instant Payments Regulation obligations as now fully in force rather than pending.