The Netherlands (and EU regulation)

New crowdfunding exemption from prohibition to attract repayable funds

By Floortje Nagelkerke (NL) and Nikolai de Koning on March 30, 2016 Posted in Regulation and compliance, The Netherlands

On 30 March 2016, the amended Exemption Regulation AFS (Vrijstellingregeling Wft, the Exemption Regulation) was published. The Exemption Regulation will enter into effect on 1 April 2016.

Pursuant to the Act on the Financial Supervision (Wet op het financieel toezicht, AFS) it is prohibited for any party to attract, obtain or have the disposal of repayable funds (opvorderbare gelden) from the public. The amendments to the Exemption Regulation introduce a new exemption to this prohibition relevant to crowdfunding. In order to be able to act under this exemption, four cumulative requirements need to be met:

the party attracting the repayable funds must not make it its business to attract such funds;
the funds may not be attracted with the intention to grant credits for own account;
the party attracting repayable funds must make use of a party with a dispensation from the prohibition on acting as an intermediary in relation to repayable funds; and
the total amount of repayable funds must not exceed € 2,500,000 over a period of twelve months.

View the amended Exemption Regulation (Dutch only), 30 March 2016.