Are people paying too much interest on their mortgages? The cartel body Nma has the banks in its sights and they would do well to take notice writes the Volkskrant in an editorial,

Mortgage interests and fees in the Netherlands are relatively high compared to the margins German and French banks have in place, says the NMa.
Another interesting finding is that it wasn’t always so. Higher interest rates were only introduced in the second half of 2009. In the five preceding years, interest rates were in line with other European countries. No wonder then that many media all but accused the banks of illegal price fixing.
So far there isn’t any proof that the banks have done anything illegal. But even if they haven’t, a mortgage market overhaul is still overdue. There are only three main players (Rabo, ING, and ABN/Fortis) and together they control three quarters of the market. All the Big Three have to do is keep an eye on each other.
The banks’ brief is to increase their capital buffers in the coming years and hiking up mortgage interest rates must be a very tempting way of doing it, especially since home owners have no clout to speak of, in spite of what their lobby group has been trying to achieve. Fortunately for them the Nma is a force to be reckoned with. It has the authority to hold the banks accountable.
And it is not only home owners who benefit. The economy as a whole would profit from a properly functioning mortgage market. Mortgages account for € 590bn in the Netherlands, nearly as much as its gross domestic product. Banks will have to tread very carefully. In future they will have to be much more transparent when it comes to their mortgage interests and fees than they have been so far.