The new Belgian law on crowdfunding platforms of 18 December has been published in the Belgian Official Journal.
Key features include:
- Alternative Finance Service: The introduction of a new type of financial service in the Belgian regulatory landscape. The service consists of commercializing, through an internet platform, investment instruments issued by entrepreneurs looking to attract financial means from the crowd.
- Alternative Finance Platform License: Next to traditional and already licensed entities such as credit institutions and investment firms, the new alternative finance service will be reserved for licensed platforms only. Candidates have to file a license application with the FSMA. Unlike other EU countries, Belgium has opted for a single license applicable on both lending based and equity-based crowdfunding platforms. With the license come of course also rules of conduct to be complied with by the platforms.
- Higher thresholds for the Prospectus exemption: The new law also (slightly) increases the thresholds in the existing 2006 Prospectus law. It is now no longer mandatory to publish a prospectus in case of crowdfunding projects that remain below 300.000 EUR / project and 5.000 EUR / investor (that used to be 3.000 / investor).
- Activation of the tax shelter, introduced already in August 2015, creating tax incentives for investors to support entrepreneurs and their businesses
Get your copy of the law here [1].
Do not hesitate to contact Simont Braun’s Digital Finance Team: digitalfinance@simontbraun.eu [2] or +32 2 543 70 80