February 12, 2012, 06:01 CET
Information for financial services institutions
Since the Sixth Act Amending the Banking Act came into force (Banking Act of 1998), enterprises which provide financial services commercially or on a scale which requires a commercially organised business undertaking (financial services institutions) have been supervised according to the same rules as credit institutions.
Financial services comprise
- investment broking,
- investment advice,
- operation of a multilateral trading system,
- placement business,
- contract broking,
- portfolio management,
- own-account trading provided as a service for third parties,
- factoring,
- finance lease and
- asset management.
To be able to better monitor the "grey capital market", the following were also classified as financial services:
- non-EEA deposit broking and
- foreign currency dealing
Anyone wishing not only to conduct banking business or to provide financial services within the meaning of section 1 (1a) sentence 2 numbers 1 to 5 and 11 but also to purchase or sell financial instruments for their own account also needs written authorisation from BaFin for this activity if he/she does not fulfil the preconditions for proprietary trading (proprietary business).
As from 1 January 1998, therefore, anyone wishing to provide financial services to others commercially or on a commercial scale in the Federal Republic of Germany requires a licence pursuant to section 32 (1) BA. Details about obtaining such a licence can be found in "Notice on the granting of authorisation to provide financial services pursuant to section 32 (1) of the German Banking Act".
The Deutsche Bundesbank is involved in prudential supervision, in particular, through its role of receiving and evaluating the documents submitted in compliance with institutions' reporting requirements under the Banking Act.
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