In a parliamentary inquiry into last year's financial crisis, former Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm has said that banks were allowed to give credit despite being undercapitalised. Mr Zalm told the lower house inquiry committee that risks for the banks would have been less, had they been subject to sharper capitalisation requirements.

Bank sector watchdogs should have included the banks' bonus policies in their judgements, Mr Zalm said. They only began doing that after the crisis. The former minister pointed to the lack of a European system of bank supervision. Mr Zalm, currently the top banker of state-owned ABN Amro, said that the problem was not a lack of rules in the Netherlands.

The results of the inquiry, which is chaired by Socialist Party opposition MP Jan de Wit, are expected in April.

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