Independent survey into Board dynamics of de Volksbank completed

De Volksbank and NLFI have recently received the ‘Working with a Human Touch’ survey report drafted by Paul Nobelen and Gerrard Boot. The researchers spoke with 34 people in the period from September to December 2020, including the members of the Supervisory Board, current and former members of the Board of Directors of de Volksbank and representatives of NLFI.

Multiple interviews were held with some of them. The researchers were given free access to all documents they needed, including the minutes of the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board of the past few years and third-party survey reports.

The report contains the results of their survey of the functioning of de Volksbank’s Board of Directors, the interaction between the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board of de Volksbank and their members, especially in the period from January to August 2020, and all that the researchers considered relevant in this respect.

The researchers were asked to pay attention to why members of the Board of Directors were apparently experiencing insufficient openness and safety to express any divergent opinions and whether any intimidating or other inappropriate behaviour had taken place. Being the bank’s sole shareholder, NLFI fulfilled a monitoring role.