BELGIUM Law and Practice Contributed by: Joan Carette, Philippe De Prez and Thomas Derval, Simont Braun
SME credit offered by CIs, other lenders or licensed crowdlending platforms The regime applicable to credit to SMEs is less reg - ulated than the one applicable to consumer credit. The regime applies not only to Belgian companies (to the extent that they do not exceed the thresholds of SMEs), but also to organisations and individuals who do not act for private purposes (eg, a self-employed natural person). The Law of 21 December 2013 on the financing of SMEs (SMEs Law) notably sets out: • pre-contractual information obligations; • an obligation for the lenders to adopt a code of conduct in relation to the granting of loans to SMEs; and • specific rules for early reimbursements. The SMEs Law is not applicable to loans granted through crowdfunding platforms. Crowdfunding platforms (ie, platforms providing matchmaking services between project owners and investors) are regulated under the Law of 18 Decem - ber 2016 regulating the recognition and definition of crowdfunding and containing various provisions on finance on crowdfunding (Crowdfunding Law) and EU Regulation 2020/1503 of 7 October 2020 on Euro - pean crowdfunding service providers for business (Crowdfunding Regulation). Under the Crowdfunding Regulation, crowdfunding platforms must obtain a licence before they start operating within the EU; once obtained in one EEA country, their licence enables them to carry out their activities across the EU on a cross-border basis. The crowdfunding framework has been further specified through EU technical stand - ards, including Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/358, which sets regulatory technical standards (RTS) on credit scoring, pricing and risk management. Loans and forms of credit offered by CIs or other lenders to enterprises other than SMEs If credit/a loan does not fall into one of the above- mentioned categories, it is regarded as unregulated. General contract law applies and only a few specific provisions of the Belgian (former) Civil Code (Articles 1905–1914) must be taken into account, as well as
general consumer protection law (as contained in Book VI of the CEL) when offering B2C credits that fall outside the scope of the consumer credit regime (eg, BNPL products). In addition, the sale, purchase and servicing of non-performing loans (NPL) originated by EU credit institutions is now subject to the Belgian Law of 20 December 2024, in force since 24 January 2025, implementing Directive (EU) 2021/2167, including the authorisation of credit services by the FSMA and bor - rower protection requirements. 4.2 Underwriting Processes The underwriting processes will mainly depend on the type of credit and customer. AML Obligations The common feature of all underwriting processes of regulated credit is that all lenders (or crowdfunding platforms) are subject to the AML Law, which trans - poses AMLD5. Typical AML obligations are therefore applicable (identification and verification of the iden - tity of the borrower/ultimate beneficial owners, risk- based assessment, ongoing surveillance, reporting of suspicious transactions, etc). An increasing number of market participants make use of innovative means for identification in a remote environment (eg, facial likeness detection, videocon - ferencing or other biometric data, Belgian eID (elec - tronic identity card), other electronic identification means or relevant trust services as set out in the EU Regulation 910/2014 of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic trans - actions in the internal market (eIDAS Regulation) as amended by eIDAS 2, which establishes the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet framework and further supports cross-border electronic identification and authentication, including through wallet-based iden - tification and electronic attestations of attributes. Additional Obligations Besides the AML obligations, the online onboarding of clients must also comply with specific obligations laid down in the CEL, the SMEs Law, the Crowdfunding Law and the Crowdfunding Regulation. These pieces of legislation usually stipulate that specific information
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