At the end of last year, a small Dutch bank failed. And Parliament got involved some 2 months later, when the Minister of Finance explained how all this could occur (and how supervision is never a guarantee that banks will not go broke). As a part of the discussion he also promised to investigate if the 20.000 euro deposit guarantee limit could be raised to 40.000 euro.
In this letter (in Dutch) he explains that he will indeed do so, but that he will most likely introduce a 'own risk' for the consumer as well. So while a larger sum of money may be protected, the first 500 or 1000 euro will not be paid back.
Interestingly, the Dutch banks jointly decided to apply the 40.000 rule for the current customers of van der Hoop (the bank that went broke) and just for this time, even without a 'own risk' rule.
Once more, this shows that incidents are the best trigger for regulatory intervention. Whether incidents are simultaneously the best argument for such interventions remains to be seen of course...
