Country Manual Private Banking – Belgium (out of EEA) – BRP Update 2024
BRP has updated its Country Manual Private Banking for Belgium out of EEA out of bank’s country of establishment (DEF, RS, BT and RT)
| Source of changes | Answers |
|---|---|
| Law / Regulation | No |
| New Position of the Authorities | No |
| Evolution of Expert’s Interpretation | Yes |
Regulatory Template, Regulatory Summary and Behaviour Template
Material changes
The documents have been reviewed following consultation with our local counsels and we can confirm that there have been no major relevant regulatory changes since the last publication of this Country Manual
Non-material changes
The main changes have been made to the sections on business relationships with third parties. The rest of the documents only contain some aesthetic non-material changes.
Implications for business relations with third parties
The sections on business relationships with third parties, namely finders, tied agents, business introducers, and EAMs, have been entirely reviewed.
Some answers and comments have been reformulated and developed for more clarity, without changing the previous approach. Apart from this, the main points to be noted are the following:
- When cooperating with any third party in Belgium, only mere occasional referral activities are tolerated. Indeed, to avoid the risk for the EEA Bank of being considered as having a de facto agent and/or permanent establishment in Belgium, local third parties should limit their activities to the provision of the contact details of the Bank and/or the provision of the identity of the prospect to the Bank. Actively, this should be limited to a one-to-one basis.
- Remuneration shemes, either based on the volume of client assets or on the Bank’s revenues generated by client assets, are tolerated provided they are limited in time (i.e., no payment in instalments exceeding three years) and independently of the number of services provided.
- Any activity delegated to a Belgian EAM triggers not only the risk of being considered as a de facto agent and/or permanent establishment of the EEA Bank in Belgium, but also the need (for the EAM) to register as an intermediary in banking and investment services. It is worth underlining that such a license is in any case incompatible with the EAM’s license as an investment firm.
- The only context in which documentation can be provided to a Belgian EAM is when it is distributed to the EAM for its own attention. On the contrary, it should be avoided to hand over material for the attention of the EAM’s end clients.
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Regulatory Summary
This document has now a more user-friendly layout and reflects the changes contained in the RT
For more information, please contact us: info@brpsa.com
Geneva, April 2nd, 2024