About the organization 

PGB Pensioendiensten is the pension administration and service organisation of Pensioenfonds PGB. Together with Pensioenfonds PGB, they ensure that the pensions of approximately 460,000 participants remain sustainable and affordable. They serve more than 4,000 employers and manage assets of €37 billion (as at 30 June 2026). PGB Pensioendiensten employs approximately 350 staff members, supplemented by a flexible pool of external specialists. 
PGB Pensioendiensten's mid-office oversight team is responsible for monitoring the services its custodian performs on its behalf, including tax services, and for continuously identifying additional reclaim opportunities. 

As Alaaddin Tekin, Investment Analyst, explains, custody oversight has only grown in importance: 

"Because of regulatory reporting and the tightening of legislation, you see that there is extra pressure on that, and also from a return [perspective] for the participants, you want it to be as cost-efficient as possible." 

Withholding tax legislation, they note, has become increasingly complex in recent years, and without constant attention, organizations risk missing opportunities that directly affect net return. 

The challenge 

The trigger for PGB Pensioendiensten (PGB) to look for a dedicated withholding tax solution was a change of custodian. The tax services offered by the new custodian looked different from what the team was used to, prompting them to ask a broader question: how could they be sure they were making optimal use of the tax benefits available to their participants, beyond what was covered by their custodian's standard service? 

Having worked with Taxology before, PGB's team soon began exploring how to gain reliable, ongoing insight into their reclaim options on an annual basis. 

Why Protocol 

Before choosing Protocol, PGB seriously considered handling reclaim monitoring internally. That option was quickly weighed against the benefits of a dedicated platform, and the balance tipped toward Protocol for two main reasons. 

1. Specialised, up-to-date expertise.  

"The moment there are changes [in legislation], you just notice that a tax advisor is better informed, because they are constantly working on it,"

2. Lower risk.  

Protocol maintains a built-in audit trail that would be costly to replicate internally, and it removes the risk of working with outdated rates or missing a newly available reclaim option.  

"The moment a reclaim option is added or a tax rate changes, you have the risk that you may be calculating with the wrong figures" if this is tracked manually. 

Implementation: a data-matching challenge, met with responsive support 

Onboarding proved more demanding than PGB anticipated, not because of Protocol itself, but due to the effort to establish a consistent mapping between the available reports, data points and data definitions. This took additional time and coordination but was an important step in achieving a reliable and consistent outcome. 

What stood out positively throughout this process was the Taxology team's responsiveness:  

"What I found positively striking was that in all the time [it took], we received feedback quickly and solution-oriented from the Taxology team, and with Protocol. That was just abundantly clear from beginning to end of the implementation process." 

Day-to-day value 

With the first full analysis cycle still underway, PGB is already seeing where Protocol adds value: 

Market-level insight.  

Protocol shows the team exactly where its custodian's standard service ends and where additional reclaim opportunities begin, for example, discriminatory withholding tax within Europe, which the custodian's current service does not cover. "You immediately see the possibilities." 

Clear prioritization.  

Deadlines are displayed directly in the platform, helping the team focus attention where it matters most at any given moment. 

Easier conversations with the custodian.  

Data can be exported to Excel, which the team uses to compare figures, flag discrepancies at the security level, and have more substantive conversations with its custodian, supported by data rather than assumptions. 

A single, evolving record.  

Findings and follow-up are logged in Protocol's comment section, keeping the full history of a query in one place. 

Tekin rates Protocol as very user-friendly: 

"In the beginning it can seem a bit overwhelming because you have a lot of overviews at market or security level, and the comment section. But after a demo you can already get along very well." 

More than software: a platform backed by expertise 

For PGB, the combination of the platform and the tax knowledge of the Taxology team is central to the value of the partnership. When they identify a potential reclaim, they first discuss it with Taxology to assess the likelihood of acceptance, whether a local tax advisor is needed, and what experience Taxology has in that specific market.  

This shortens the turnaround time considerably. 

"It shows that the team really takes the customer seriously and also thinks along with them about the solution and what they can do for you," Tekin says. 

Looking ahead 

PGB expects its use of Protocol to expand further as data quality checks become an even bigger part of custody oversight. Where differences appear between income data and tax reclaim data, this can point to underlying data quality issues, insight the team plans to use more actively going forward in conversations with its custodian. 

In summary 

"Protocol helps us a lot by providing insight into tax reclaim possibilities, and it also strengthens our control over the reclaim process. The combination of the software and the knowledge of the Taxology team ensure that we can quickly proceed to the necessary follow-up actions."