To be in line with the changes in the European law and for greater consistency in the procedures, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) has, following the entry into force of the “Authorisation Law” of 21 July 2021, now sole competence for taking final decisions as regards the grant, refusal and withdrawal of authorisation.
The "Approvals law"
The law of 21 July 2021 was published in Mémorial A 560 on Monday 26 July 2021 and entered into force on Friday 30 July 2021. From that date, the CSSF exercises the power to grant, refuse and withdraw for the approvals of certain entities placed under its supervision, in lieu of the Minister of Finance.
Concretely, the approval procedures for the following entities are concerned: mortgage intermediaries; all PSF as defined by Article 1 of the amended law of 5 April 1993 on the financial sector (investment companies, specialized PSF, support PSF); branches of foreign-law PSF other than investment firms; branches of credit institutions from third countries; third country companies providing investment services or carrying out investment activities; fiduciary representatives in accordance with the amended law of 22 March 2004 relating to securitisation; payment institutions and electronic money institutions; regulated markets.
To this end, amendments have been made to various legislative texts (Consumer Code, Law of 5 April 1993 on the financial sector, Organic Law of the CSSF of 23 December 1998, Law of 22 March 2004 on securitization, Law of 10 November 2009 on payment services and the law of 30 May 2018 on the markets in financial instruments). These modifications relate only to the transfer of competence for granting authorisation from the Minister of Finance to the CSSF and do not change the conditions for granting, refusing or withdrawing an authorisation, the substantive requirements also remaining unchanged.
The changes made take into account the evolution of European Union law increasingly advocating the attribution of authorisation powers to the competent national authorities in charge of prudential supervision.
Impact for the financial sector
The CSSF will continue to pre-examine and investigate the requests that will be submitted to it. For supervised entities, this change has the advantage that the approval processes no longer entail a double involvement, that of the CSSF and that of the Ministry of Finance. It should be noted that in recent years, the CSSF has developed a strategy of digital portals, in particular in order to make exchanges with supervised entities faster and more transparent.
