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Stand:updated on 01.04.2016 Employee and Complaints Register

The German Investor Protection and Capital Markets Improvement Act (Anlegerschutz- und FunktionsverbesserungsgesetzAnsFuG) implemented the provision of section 34d of the German Securities Trading Act (WertpapierhandelsgesetzWpHG). The intention is to enhance investor protection from negligent advice. Thus the provision includes not only specific requirements for certain employee groups but also new reporting requirements for investment services enterprises.

All the relevant information concerning the employee and complaints register pursuant to section 34d of the WpHG, i.e. the legal basis and publications, information on the reporting procedure and ways to contact BaFin, is given below.

Requirements for enterprises

Pursuant to section 34d of the WpHG, investment services enterprises must ensure that they only employ adequately qualified staff in the business units specified. This concerns employees who provide investment advice, sales representatives and compliance officers. In particular, staff who are in a position to influence the quality of investment advice must meet certain minimum requirements relating not only to their degree of expertise but also to their reliability.

Moreover, the individual employees must be reported to BaFin, along with further information relevant from a supervisory perspective (e.g. the number of complaints). From an organisational standpoint, this is done via the registration of employees in a non-public database maintained by BaFin. This not only creates an additional source of information for BaFin; the active registration of employees is also intended to have a disciplining effect on the institutions in that it imparts upon them the significance of employee selection and their responsibility for their decisions. The WpHG Employee Notification Regulation (WpHG-Mitarbeiteranzeigeverordnung – WpHGMaAnzV) specifies in detail the requirements imposed upon employees and provides further information on the reporting procedure.

Contraventions of the provision, for instance if insufficiently qualified employees are used or employees breach the provisions of the WpHG, may result in warnings, administrative fine proceedings and, as a last resort, temporary bans on employment.

The goal of the requirements laid down in section 34d of the WpHG is to put BaFin in a position to perform in-depth, risk-oriented analyses of investment advisory practices.

Legal basis and publications

The legal basis and BaFin publications concerning the reporting requirements set forth in section 34d of the WpHG are listed on the right. You can also find answers to frequently asked questions relating to sales targets as laid down in section 33 (1) sentence 2 no. 3a of the WpHG (Only available in German).

In addition to section 34d of the WpHG, the provisions concerning administrative fines set forth in section 39 (2) nos. 22 and 23 of the WpHG are also relevant.

Technical information

The WpHGMaAnzV contains details on the reporting requirements imposed upon the investment services enterprises concerned. Reports pursuant to section 34d of the WpHG are to be submitted via BaFin's Reporting and Publishing Platform (MVP Portal).

For details on registering for the MVP Portal and on the specialised procedures, please refer to the information sheet, the technical FAQs on the employee and complaints register and the MVP Portal FAQs.

Test database

In addition to BaFin's productive database, a test specialised procedure is available which allows investment services enterprises to ensure the compatibility of their own systems with those used on the MVP Portal. In order to access the test specialised procedure, an application must be lodged with BaFin via the MVP Portal. After registration, you can submit test reports and will receive feedback.

Contact information

  • Questions relating to the employee and complaints register:

    • If you are experiencing technical issues, please check first whether your question has already been answered in the FAQs on the employee and complaints register.
    • If not, please send a direct enquiry to beraterregister@bafin.de, which is available to assist you with general and specific issues.

  • Questions concerning the MVP Portal:

Additional information

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