The Dutch Central Bank is supporting the creation of a 'blockchain development campus' for banks to congregate and share knowledge on the the application of distributed ledger technology in the financial services arena.
The new campus is expected to open in September with the aim of creating a central space for financial participants to collaborate with their peers across the country's emerging blockchain ecosystem.
The initiative was announced by the country's recently appointed 'fintech ambassador' Willem Vermeend at a conference organised by Holland Fintech and De Nederlandsche Bank.
“There is a lot of creativity in the Netherlands," stated Vermeend. "The problem is that I have spoken to twenty parties who do not know what each other is doing."
The nation's banks have so far been ploughing their own path on the road towards a blockchain-shaped future. ABN Amro, for instance, has formed a 30-strong team to investigate the possible applications of shared ledgers across the bank, while Rabobank has partnered with the NexusLab programme geared towards the investigation of early-stage European blockchain ventures.
The country's central bank has also flagged its interest in the emerging scene. Contained in its annual report, under the heading "Aims for 2016" is a project dubbed DNBCoin which is described as "a prototype coin based on blockchain technology".
The blockchain campus initiative follows last month's announcement by the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) and De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) on the creation of an 'InnovationHub' to help startups and banks plying innovative services navigate the regulatory framework.