BSN at financial institutions
Under the State Taxes Act and the deposit guarantee scheme, financial institutions are obliged to use the citizen service number (Dutch BSN) of their clients.
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Your bank may use your BSN
The BSN is primarily for contact between you as a citizen and the government. Organisations outside the government may only use your BSN if it is stipulated by law. And only for the specific purpose stated in the law.
Financial enterprises, such as your bank, are organisations outside the government. They are allowed to use your BSN under the General Act on State Taxes and the Deposit Guarantee Scheme.
State Taxes Act
Under the State Taxes Act (in Dutch) financial undertakings, such as your bank, are obliged to pass on information about you to the Tax and Customs Administration every year. This concerns information about your assets, interest received and/or paid, or current loans.
The bank is obliged to state your BSN as part of that information. The Tax and Customs Administration uses the data, for example, for levying tax and for the pre-filled tax return.
Provision of BSN for the deposit guarantee scheme
Your bank is also obliged to pass on your BSN to De Nederlandse Bank (DNB), the central Dutch bank. This is because financial undertakings are obliged to share data of their account holders with DNB for the deposit guarantee scheme (in Dutch). The BSN is part of those data.
Does your bank go bankrupt? Then DNB will use your data for paying out the money to you that you are entitled to under the deposit guarantee scheme.
Requesting a quotation: no BSN needed
Do you request a quotation from a provider of a financial product or a financial service? Then the provider is not allowed to ask for your BSN. The provider may be required by law to process your BSN, but only if you are a customer.
That legal obligation does not apply in the quotation stage. So have you not yet accepted the offer in the quotation? Then the provider is not allowed to process your BSN in any case whatsoever. Not even if you give consent for this.
Provision of intermediary services by an intermediary
When requesting quotations for a financial product or a financial service, you can use the services of an intermediary. For example, if you are looking for a mortgage lender. On your instructions, such intermediary may act as an intermediary between you and the providers of financial products and services. Purpose: conclusion of an agreement
Whether the intermediary is allowed to ask for your BSN depends on the stage. It is not allowed in the quotation stage. Did you subsequently accept an offer for a financial product or a financial service? And is the intermediary providing intermediary services on your instructions? Then it is allowed.
The intermediary is only allowed to process your BSN if this is 'necessary for the performance of a legal act' on your instructions. This applies, for example, when you take out a mortgage with a bank. In that case, the bank is required by law to provide your BSN to the Tax and Customs Administration. Your intermediary then passes on your BSN to the bank on your behalf.