Financial Services Archives

Licence requirement for credit service providers – services for non-performing loans now require a licence

by Renate Prinz on Feb 28, 2024
Posted In Banking Law, Financial Services, NPL

When the Secondary Credit Market Act (Kreditzweitmarktgesetz) came into force on 30 December 2023, services relating to non-performing loans, i.e. loans that are no longer being settled or are at risk of default, will require a licence. Companies that already provide credit services today had to register with BaFin in February and state that they will continue to provide these services and now have until April to submit a licence application. A transitional regulation will then apply to them, under which the services can initially still be provided without a licence. In addition, the sale of NPLs by credit institutions [...]

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FinmadiG and KMAG – Implementation of European crypto-financial market regulation in Germany

by Annabelle Rau on Jan 29, 2024
Posted In Crypto Regulation, Financial Services

The German legislator has responded to the harmonization of European financial market regulations: In October 2023, the Federal Ministry of Finance published the draft bill for the Act on the Digitization of the Financial Market (Finanzmarktdigitalisierungsgesetz – “FinmadiG“), followed by the publication of the government draft of the FinmadiG just one month later.

MiCAR, DORA and money transfers – what does the FinmadiG implement?

The FinmadiG is intended to implement the following EU regulations on digital financial market regulation:

Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (“MiCAR”): The first EU-wide uniform set of rules for markets in crypto assets (we provided information here, for [...]

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Update for securities institutions: German Securities Institutions Owner Control Ordi-nance published

by Annabelle Rau on Jan 17, 2024
Posted In Banking Law, Financial Services

On January 15, 2024, the German Securities Institutions Owner Control Ordinance was published in the Federal Law Gazette and thus entered into force today, January 16, 2024.

Owner control procedures for securities institutions

The Securities Institutions Owner Control Ordinance regulates the material and formal requirements for the acquisition of a significant shareholding in a regulated securities institution (so-called owner control procedure).

A significant or qualified shareholding is defined as the direct or indirect holding of shares in a company that represents at least 10% of the capital or voting rights of this company or that otherwise enables the exercise of [...]

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United Kingdom’s digital pound meets public backlash – Why?

by Annabelle Rau on Jul 17, 2023
Posted In Financial Services

It’s not only the EU with its plans for a digital Euro that’s addressing the matter of Central Bank Digital Currency (“CBDC“). The UK has also unveiled an ambitious roadmap for the introduction of a ‘Britcoin’ by 2030. In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Annabelle Rau sheds light on the impacts of CBDCs on privacy, financial inclusion, and the risks of bank runs.

Follow this link to the full version of the article on [...]

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ESG query obligation will also apply to German investment intermediaries (Finanzanlagenvermittler)

by Annabelle Rau on Feb 3, 2023
Posted In Financial Services, Financial situation intermediary

ESG is also coming to German investment intermediaries!
On November 11, 2022, the German Federal Ministry of Economics presented a draft bill for a Regulation Amending the Trade Notification Regulation and the Financial Investment Intermediaries Regulation. As a result of the amendment, German investment intermediaries licensed under Section 34f of the German Trade Regulation Act (Gewerbeordnung – „GewO“) will have to ask their customers about their sustainability preferences in the context of investment advice and take these into account in a suitability test.

Alignment of the ESG query obligation with the European regulatory standard
Since [...]

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Amendment of the Owner Control Regulation

by Kai Grandpierre on Jan 2, 2023
Posted In Banking Law, Financial Services

On December 28, 2022, the amended “Regulation on Notifications in Accordance with Section 2c of the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz – KWG) and Section 104 of the German Insurance Supervision Act (Versicherungsaufsichtsgesetz – VAG)”, the Owner Control Regulation (Inhaberkontrollverordnung – InhKontrollV, also referred to as Holder Control Regulation by BaFin), became effective. The amendment expands the scope of the documents and declarations to be submitted, but at the same time contains partial relief for the party subject to the notification requirement.

Consideration of the changes to the KWG and the VAG

The amendments to the InhKontrollV take into account the [...]

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The year is drawing to a close – what’s new for 2023?

by Renate Prinz on Dec 19, 2022
Posted In Banking Law, Financial Services, Funds

As the year draws to a close, it is worth taking a look at new regulations at the start of the year: As of January 1, the new Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on the EU Disclosure Regulation will apply to financial market participants and financial advisors. With the Disclosure Regulation, which already came into force in March 2021, respective companies must prove how sustainable their products are, the extent to which ESG criteria, i.e. ecological and social standards and good corporate governance, are observed and pursued and which strategies are applied here.

The Disclosure and Taxonomy Regulation applies to financial [...]

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BaFin on the new sustainability exploration in investment advice and financial portfolio management

by Annabelle Rau on Aug 17, 2022
Posted In Financial Services

In a publication dated August 3, 2022, BaFin referred to the now applicable obligation of investment advisors and financial portfolio managers to conduct customer exploration with regard to the sustainability preferences of customers.

Customer exploration now also includes sustainability factors, which is why the suitability check and declaration is expanded to include the aspect of the customer’s sustainability preference.
The background is the Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/1253 of the European Commission, which regulates the inclusion of sustainability factors, risks and preferences in certain organizational requirements and conditions for the operation of securities firms.

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