BELGIUM Law and Practice Contributed by: Joan Carette, Philippe De Prez and Thomas Derval, Simont Braun
4.4 Syndication of Fiat Currency Loans Syndication of online loans is not a current mar - ket practice in Belgium. This is mainly because loan syndication is reserved to the biggest bor - rowers and the biggest funding transactions. The largest financing contracts are generally not concluded online. There is no specific regulation in this respect; only a set of market practice documentation. However, the crowdlending process presents certain similarities to the syndication mecha - nism. 5. Payment Processors 5.1 Payment Processors’ Use of Payment Rails In Belgium, there are two main payment sys - tems: • CEC (Centre for Exchange and Clearing), a domestic retail payment system for retail payment instruments, based on multilateral netting and settlement; and • TARGET-BE, the Belgian component of T2 for real-time gross settlement and used for set - tling central bank operations, primarily related to monetary policy, for large interbank trans - fers and client operations. In addition to those, payment processors may in principle create or implement new private pay - ment systems. 5.2 Regulation of Cross-Border Payments and Remittances PSD2 With the PSD2, the EU legislature wanted to create an efficient and integrated market for
tures under the eIDAS Regulation, and thus have the equivalent legal effect of a handwritten sig - nature. In 2023, the doctrine of functional equivalent – which assimilates, under certain conditions, physical processes to online processes – has been extended to all contractual mechanisms (Article 5.30 of the Belgian Civil Code). 4.3 Sources of Funds for Fiat Currency Loans The source of funds for loans will depend mainly on the nature of the lender rather than on the nature of the credit: • CIs use client deposits to grant loans (money multiplier), provided that they keep sufficient deposit reserves at the European Central Bank or ECB (see EU Regulation 2021/378 of 22 January 2021 on the application of mini - mum reserve requirements) and respect the EU Directive 2013/36/EU of 26 June 2013 on access to the activity of CIs and the pruden - tial supervision of CIs and investment firms and the EU Regulation 575/2013 of 26 June 2013 on prudential requirements for CIs and investment firms; • other lenders, licensed or not (which are not CIs) cannot receive refundable deposits under Belgian law (Article 28 of the Law of 11 July 2018 on the offer of investment instruments to the public and the admission of investment instruments to trading on a regulated market) (the “New Prospectus Law” ) and cannot cre - ate money ex nihilo – therefore, they can only lend their own funds; and • lenders who operate through crowdfunding platforms lend their own funds and, from a legal point of view, the borrower issues debt instruments.
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