GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Paris Tzoumas, Vivian Efthymiou and Dimitrios Mekakas, Zepos & Yannopoulos
ers. The SRB is competent for the credit institu - tions supervised directly by the ECB. In addition, the BoG is also responsible for supervising the compliance of credit institutions with the AML/CFT framework. The Hellenic Capital Market Commission (HCMC) is the competent authority for monitor - ing the compliance of credit institutions with Law 4514/2018, with respect to investment services, with the exception of certain areas which remain under the authority of the BoG. The HCMC is also responsible for monitor - ing compliance with market abuse legislation, including Regulation (EU) 596/2014 (“MAR”) and Law 4443/2016, which supplements the MAR in Greece. 2. Authorisation 2.1 Licences and Application Process Credit institutions established and operating in Greece must be authorised by the ECB, which co-operates closely with the BoG. Τhe authori - sation of credit institutions in Greece is one of the “common procedures”, as defined in Regu - lation (EU) 468/2014 (“SSM Framework Regula - tion”) (ECB/2014/17), on which the final decision lies with the ECB. • Greek credit institutions may be established and may operate in Greece as: • sociétés anonymes (which is the most com - mon legal type); • pure credit co-operatives under Law 1667/1986; • European Societies (SE) under Regulation (EU) 2157/2001; or
• European Co-operative Societies under Regulation (EU) 1435/2003. Greek credit institutions may be licensed to per - form all banking activities listed in Annex I of CRD IV (“universal licence”), namely: • the acceptance of deposits and other repay - able funds; • lending including, inter alia, consumer credit, credit agreements relating to immovable property, factoring, with or without recourse, financing of commercial transactions (includ - ing forfeiting); • financial leasing; • payment services as defined in Article 4(3) of the PSD2; • issuing and administering other means of payment (ie, travellers’ cheques and bankers’ drafts) insofar as such activity is not covered by the above point; • guarantees and commitments; • trading for own account or for the account of customers in any of the following: (a) money market instruments (cheques, bills, certificates of deposit, etc); (b) foreign exchange; (c) financial futures and options; (d) exchange and interest-rate instruments; and (e) transferable securities; • participation in securities issues and the provision of services relating to such issues, particularly underwriting; • advice to undertakings on capital structure, industrial strategy and related questions, and on services relating to mergers and the pur - chase of undertakings; • money broking; • portfolio management or advice; • safekeeping and administration of securities;
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