Follow us on
Difitek
  • News
  • What We Offer
  • Contact Us
  • Visit our Site

Finland Releases Guidelines for Securities Crowdfunding

7/31/2014

 
Picture
The crowdfunding scene in Europe is evolving fast. This year France, Spain and the UK adopted regulations for securities crowdfunding, while the European Commission officially announced its support to crowdfunding, as a valid financial source, able to help fuel Europe’s sustainable growth. In Finland, like in Sweden, the crowdfunding scene has been flourishing and active for a few years now, with more and more actors getting involved.

At the beginning of July the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) published on its website the guidelines for securities crowdfunding in the country, which until then has been working in different ways under to the existing legal framework.

The guidelines clear all doubts on how securities crowdfunding (i.e. equity and bonds) should be legally considered.

In particular, FIN-FSA distinguishes between:

  • loan-based crowdfunding which does not require any specific regulation and it is not subject to supervision by FIN-FSA.

  • equity crowdfunding which instead requires an authorisation for those portals that conduct one or more of the following activities: 1) “Bring together  parties to a business transaction related to a financial instrument in the manner that enables execution of a transaction between these parties”; 2)Give advice on investments; 3)“offer an issuer of a financial instrument a service for the purpose of acquiring investors”.
However, issuers using equity crowdfunding to raise capital can benefit from an exemption to the prospectus rule, according to  which every company issuing securities is required to publish a prospectus approved by the Supervisory Authority. The exemption, instead, allows those companies offering less than €1,5 million to the public not to publish such prospectus, which is often time-consuming and expensive to produce. Nevertheless, issuers are still required to provide a sufficient level of information “on factors that may have a material effect on the value of the shares”, as FIN-FSA writes. The sufficiency of information will be valued depending on the investment experience of the target group of investors. Thus, in some cases, the issuer will have to disclose as much information as that required by the prospectus.

The guidelines published by FIN-FSA on crowdfunding represent a further step for the Finnish crowdfunding, which is now officially recognized by the local financial authority. Hopefully the guidelines will bring more clarity and increase the transparency in this young market, fostering even more the growth of the Finnish crowdfunding market.

References
Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority. http://www.finanssivalvonta.fi/en/Authorisations/crowdfunding/Pages/Default.aspx

Image credit to: Kari Söderholm 

Picture
About the author - Irene Tordera

Born and raised in Milan, Italy, Irene is an International Business graduate, with a strong interest for innovative ideas that can simplify our lives.

During her studies, she co-founded an online community for sportspeople and worked in marketing positions at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising and at the European Business Angel Network, in Brussels. She is a passionate blogger about crowdfunding and the startup ecosystem.





Comments are closed.

    RSS Feed

       

    Categories

    All
    All Sectors
    Americas
    API
    Asia
    Australasia
    Clean Energy
    Crowd Valley
    CTO Blog
    Difitek
    Equity Investment
    Europe
    Events
    Expert Analysis
    Fintech
    Global
    Interview
    Lending
    Local Funding Network
    Marketing
    Market Watch
    Oceania
    Platform Updates
    Presentations
    Press Release
    Real Estate
    Regulations
    Russia
    Social Capital
    Webinar

Back to Difitek website


Copyright 2018 Crowd Valley Inc. 
All Rights Reserved.

Crowd Valley does not engage in the offer, sale or transfer of securities and securities may not be offered, sold or transferred via this website. Securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent (i) registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act) or (ii) an available exemption from registration under the Securities Act. Please consult legal counsel in the appropriate jurisdiction before offering, selling or buying securities as registration under the Securities Act or similar state legislation may be required.

Please note that the provision of the information on this website does not create and is not intended to create a relationship between Crowd Valley Inc. and any other person. You are not and should not regard yourself as being a client or customer of Crowd Valley Inc. and must not expect Crowd Valley Inc. to have any duties or responsibilities to you, act for you or your clients, or be responsible for providing protections afforded to customers or yourselves or be responsible for advising you in any respect.