The Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has today published its 2017 annual report. On the occasion of the presentation of the annual report, the FSMA described the preventive and enforcement actions taken by the FSMA in 2017 and a number of topics that were addressed in the course of the year.
The FSMA’s core mission is to contribute to the honest and fair treatment of financial consumers and to the transparency of the financial markets. The FSMA’s areas of competence are: supervision of financial products, supervision of compliance with conduct of business rules, market surveillance, supervision of financial service providers and intermediaries, supervision of supplementary pensions and contributing to the financial education of the public.
In order to fulfil its mandate, the FSMA can take a wide range of actions. In all that it does, the FSMA seeks to act preventively whenever possible.
The ex ante approval of advertisements for financial products is one example of such preventive action. Verifying advertising materials beforehand helps prevent the use of misleading advertisements or those that do not fulfil the legal requirements. As a result, there are very few complaints about such types of advertising. In 2017, more than 3,200 advertisements received prior approval from the FSMA.
The ban on distributing particularly complex structured products likewise serves a preventive purpose. In 2017, 20 of the 50 such products with new features were rejected in Belgium as too complex. Another form of preventive action has been the introduction of new regulations such as the ban on distribution of binary options on the Belgian market. The number of complaints about such products has thus also fallen substantially. The warnings that the FSMA publishes against potentially illegal offers of financial products and services also fit within that preventive approach. Last year the FSMA published 116 warnings, as compared to 54 in 2016. This increase is due partly to the rise in notifications from consumers, who are finding it easier to contact the FSMA in this regard.
In cases where preventive action is not possible, the FSMA can take enforcement measures. One of the options available to it is the imposition of administrative sanctions. In 2017, the FSMA imposed 13 such sanctions for a total amount of EUR 2.15 million. Since mid 2012, a total of 50 administrative sanctions have been imposed, amounting to EUR 16.2 million. Another form of enforcement action is to withdraw the registration of intermediaries. In 2017, the FSMA withdrew 285 intermediaries from its register.
At the presentation of the annual report, attention was also paid to the sectoral inquiries that the FSMA conducted in the areas of insurance and pensions, and to the new Whistleblowers’ point of contact. Since the launch of the point of contact at the end of last September, the FSMA has received 51 reports from whistleblowers.
The annual report (in French or Dutch) is available on the website of the FSMA.
Source: FSMA
