As a newcomer it was greeted with distrust. It took quite some time for DNB to evolve into the kind of national bank the King had in mind: a bank granting credit and distributing banknotes throughout the country.
It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that DNB turned from a principal lender to trade and industry into a real lender of last resort. By protecting the Netherlands from several financial crises, DNB gradually became – in the words of my then predecessor Vissering – “the absolute central institution, around which everything was concentrated”.