The Autoriteit Financiële Markten is the Dutch market conduct authority. Under the Netherlands' twin-peaks model it supervises behaviour and transparency across financial markets while DNB handles prudential soundness. Its scope covers investment firms and advisers, listed issuers and their disclosures, trading venues, audit firms, consumer credit and mortgage intermediaries, and crypto-asset service providers under MiCA.
What the AFM publishes
- Policy statements, interpretations and guidance on conduct obligations
- Public registers of licensed firms and approved prospectuses
- Market watch and thematic review findings, often naming sector-wide weaknesses
- Enforcement measures, including fines and instructions
- Reports on audit quality at Dutch audit firms
- Annual reports, agendas and trend monitors setting supervisory priorities
Why it matters for compliance teams
The AFM's trend monitor and supervisory agenda are unusually explicit about what it intends to examine in the coming year, which makes them a practical planning input rather than just commentary. Its audit firm oversight is also directly relevant to any listed Dutch group, since findings there feed into audit committee scrutiny.
Seqlense DOC indexes AFM guidance, registers and enforcement in full text alongside ESMA standards and DNB's prudential material, so a firm operating in the Netherlands can see the whole supervisory picture without tracking two authorities separately.