On 10 June 2015, the Royal Decree of 2 June 2015 (Royal Decree 2015) amending the Royal Decree of 25 April 2014 imposing certain information requirements for financial products offerings to retail clients (Transversal Royal Decree) was published in the Belgian Official Gazette.
The main objective of the Royal Decree 2015 is to postpone the entry into force of certain provisions of the Transversal Royal Decree, whose content might interfere with European Regulation N°1286/2014 of the European Parliament and Council of 26 November 2014 on key information documents for packaged retail and insurance-based investment products (also known as ‘PRIIPs’).
In addition, the Royal Decree 2015 also clarifies the scope of certain provisions of the Transversal Royal Decree, corrects some material mistakes and adapts certain provisions to take into account the postponement of the entry into force of the above provisions.
The following provisions of the Transversal Royal Decree will be postponed:
- Articles of Title 2 – Mandatory information sheet (i.e. requirement to provide retail clients with a short standardised information sheet outlining certain features of the financial product before the contemplated transaction and free of charge). This postponement will suspend indirectly, for the same duration, the pre-approval regime for advertisements provided by Article 26. However, this postponement will not affect the requirement to establish an information sheet for regulated savings accounts;
- Articles 10 (i.e. spontaneous information sheet); 12, §1, 4°, c) (i.e. mention of the label assigned to the product in the advertisement); 14 (i.e. specific requirements on label); 22, e) (i.e. when the future performance of a product is linked to the evolution of one or more assets, indices or reference values, performance is exclusively presented by means of a simulator available to clients through a website) and 23 (i.e. any advertising for financial products explicitly subject to the information sheet should mention the numerical examples included in the information sheet); and
- Appendix A (i.e. models of information sheet) and B (i.e. elements of the information sheet).
These provisions will enter into force on a date set by the King. The remaining provisions of the Transversal Royal Decree will enter into force on 12 June 2015, as initially planned.
Related links
Transversal Royal Decree
The Royal Decree of 2 June 2015:
