AFM Annual Report 2025: €11B Foundation Repair, AI Market Risks
Summary
The AFM published its Annual Report 2025 alongside two thematic reports covering financial sector resilience and emerging risks. Research reveals 500,000 Dutch homeowners have vulnerable foundations requiring €11 billion in total restoration, with over 25,000 unable to responsibly take loans for repairs. A separate study on AI in capital markets identifies both opportunities and risks, with the AFM emphasizing that human involvement and intervention capability remain essential as autonomous systems increasingly drive market decisions.
“Half a million homeowners have a vulnerable foundation. More than 120,000 of them require foundation repair—an overall restoration task of 11 billion euros.”
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GovPing monitors Netherlands AFM for new securities & markets regulatory changes. Every update since tracking began is archived, classified, and available as free RSS or email alerts — 3 changes logged to date.
What changed
The AFM Annual Report 2025 presents the regulator's assessment of interconnected economic, technological, and geopolitical risks facing the Dutch financial sector. The report highlights that half a million homeowners face foundation vulnerabilities requiring €11 billion in total restoration, with over 25,000 homeowners unable to responsibly finance repairs. Additionally, an exploratory study on AI in capital markets finds that autonomous systems offer efficiency benefits but reduce transparency into decision-making, heightening risks of sudden volatility and hard-to-detect market abuse.
Financial sector participants should note the AFM's emphasis on building resilience and agility to navigate unpredictable, clustered risks. Capital markets firms deploying AI-driven trading or investment decision systems should review whether human oversight, intervention capability, and clear accountability structures are maintained as autonomous systems take on larger roles.
Archived snapshot
Apr 22, 2026GovPing captured this document from the original source. If the source has since changed or been removed, this is the text as it existed at that time.
Press release 13/04/26
Stacking risks: uncertainty requires a resilient and agile financial sector
The accumulation of economic shocks, accelerating technologies and international tensions is creating an environment of fundamental uncertainty. The financial sector must be able to respond to unpredictability and erratic market movements. Laura van Geest, Chair of the Executive Board of the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), emphasised this during the presentation of the AFM Annual Report 2025. At the same time as publishing the annual report, the AFM released two thematic reports: one on the costs of foundation repair and another on the influence of AI on the capital markets.
In short
- Accumulation of risks exacerbates pressure on financial markets
- Homeowner vulnerable: provide responsible financing for foundation repair
- Good preconditions are crucial for the use of AI in capital markets
Accumulation of risks exacerbates pressure on financial markets
Economic uncertainty, rapid technological advances and ongoing geopolitical tensions are becoming ever more interconnected. The situation surrounding Iran illustrates how quickly events can affect energy prices, inflation expectations and market dynamics. This creates an environment in which shocks follow one another at increasing speed—and often reinforce each other.
'We are dealing with an accumulation of risks, while in the past even one of these would have made us nervous. This has become our new normal: unpredictable, short cyclical and cumulative. In the coming period, we must be prepared for that. True stability lies not in trying to return to an old equilibrium, but in our ability to navigate this unpredictability, says Laura van Geest.
According to the AFM, this means that resilience and agility are more crucial than ever for the financial sector. Companies must be able to identify risks faster, maintain robust buffers and prepare for developments that no longer occur sequentially, but in clusters and at an accelerating pace. For the AFM as a supervisor, this requires a sharp focus on emerging risks, stronger cooperation within Europe and regulation that keeps pace with a world in which uncertainty has become the norm.
Homeowner vulnerable: provide responsible financing for foundation repair
New research by the AFM sheds light on the scale of the repair and financing challenge facing homeowners with foundation problems. Half a million homeowners have a vulnerable foundation. More than 120,000 of them require foundation repair—an overall restoration task of 11 billion euros. Most homeowners cannot finance the repairs immediately, and for more than 25,000, taking out a loan does not appear to be a responsible option. According to the AFM, this is a complex challenge that the sector and relevant stakeholders must address together.
Good preconditions are crucial for the use of AI in capital markets
In an exploratory study on artificial intelligence (AI) in the capital markets, the AFM concludes that autonomous and self learning systems offer clear opportunities, such as more efficient pricing and better informed investment decisions. At the same time, as this technology continues to develop, more decisions are being made by AI while insight into the underlying decision‑making process is diminishing. This heightens the risk of sudden market volatility and the emergence of new, hard-to-detect forms of market abuse, and it complicates supervision. The AFM therefore emphasises that human involvement, the ability to intervene and clear responsibility remain essential preconditions.
More information
'Annual Report 2025' (pdf, 2 MB)
Webpage with annual reports AFM
News item regarding the report 'Foundation repair financeable for homeowners'
Report 'Foundation repair financeable for homeowners' (pdf, 1.5 MB)
News item regarding the report 'AI in Capital Marktes Balancing Innovation and Integrity'
Report 'AI in Capital Marktes Balancing Innovation and Integrity' (pdf, 700 kB)
Public Summary 'AI in Capital Marktes Balancing Innovation and Integrity' (pdf, 2.2 MB)
Contact for this article
Charlene Zikmund charlene.zikmund@afm.nl
+31 6 29 42 08 87
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