FINLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Olli Kiuru, Mia Rintasalo and Essi Hietaoja, Waselius
bility should be assessed in detail before exclud - ing the services and/or products outside the scope of the AML Act. Sanctions Regulation and National Freezing Orders The FIN-FSA’s Regulations and Guidelines 4/2023 on customer due diligence related to compliance with sanctions regulation and nation - al freezing orders entered into force on 1 March 2024 and imposed new requirements on various financial entities. Regulations and Guidelines are provided on the organisation of the supervised entity’s activities, assessment of risks related to sanctions, customer due diligence, sanctions screening, asset freezing, third-country sanc - tions and reporting. 2.15 Financial Action Task Force Standards In its 2019 country assessment of the preven - tion of money laundering and terrorist financ - ing, the FATF identified several areas for Finland to improve. Since then, Finland has made sig - nificant progress in enhancing its compliance with the FATF’s standards by amending its anti- money laundering and sanctions rules, and is no longer subject to the enhanced follow-up process. Today, Finland is either compliant or largely compliant on most of the recommenda - tions issued by the FATF. 2.16 Reverse Solicitation Reverse solicitation is available when offering financial products or services cross-border to Finland. Information/services/products pro - vided to the Finnish client/prospect must be limited to the products or services specifically requested by the prospect/client (ie, the content of the information provided must stay within the reverse-solicitation continuum). The marketing and offering of new services/products to exist -
ing clients would not be regarded as genuine reverse solicitation.
3. Robo-Advisers 3.1 Requirement for Different Business Models There is no national regulation that applies spe - cifically to robo-advisers in Finland. Instead of asset classes, what is more critical from a reg - ulatory standpoint is the type of service being offered. For instance, robo-advisers offering investment services fall within the scope of the general requirements applicable to investment firms set forth in MiFID II and the provisions thereof that have been implemented nationally. Article 5(1) of MiFID II requires the provision of investment services to be subject to prior authorisation. The requirements regarding the authorisation of investment services have been implemented nationally into the ISA, pursu - ant to which the investment firm authorisation shall be granted by the FIN-FSA for the provi - sion of investment services or for the practice of engaging in investment activities. The “provision of investment services” means that it is not the investment firm that needs to be authorised, but rather the investment services offered. There - fore, since new services require authorisation, robo-advisers require authorisation. In other words, the ISA enables investment firms to use robo-advisers for the provision of investment services (ie, investment advice and portfolio management), subject to having received prior authorisation. Moreover, as MiFID II is technology-neutral by not prescribing how such investment services are to be offered, the FIN-FSA cannot reject authorisation solely on the basis that the invest-
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