how do I explain my shareholder structure to the bank

The bank wants to know who the ultimate beneficial owner is

The bank does not ask for the shareholder structure out of curiosity, but to determine who the UBO is — the "ultimate beneficial owner", the natural person who is ultimately the owner or has control. This is an obligation that stems from anti-money laundering legislation, and applies to every bank when entering into or reviewing a customer relationship. It is therefore not a question that the bank invents itself: every bank asks it, in virtually the same form.

What you concretely provide is a diagram of the ownership chain: which entity holds what percentage of shares, down to the natural persons at the top of the structure. With a simple structure — one holding company, one owner — that is half a page. With multiple intermediate holdings or foreign shareholders, the bank often wants to see an extract for each level. You also use that same extract for the registration number under which the enterprise is registered — which the bank usually asks in the same onboarding step. If you have a shareholder in another country, the question often comes back in which countries the enterprise has establishments, because that affects the bank's risk assessment. If a link is missing — for example because a foreign parent company does not provide a recent extract — then "to be provided" is a common answer; the bank will then follow up on it itself.

Where this comes from: the Trade Register as the source register

The basis of every shareholder diagram is the registration in the Trade Register, in which according to the Trade Register Act 2007 the directors, shareholders and control relationships of an enterprise are recorded. For a Dutch entity, a recent extract is therefore the first piece of evidence; for foreign intermediate holdings, the equivalent from the local register applies. This law says nothing about what the bank must do with it — that follows from anti-money laundering legislation — but it does specify where the data that the bank asks for is officially recorded.