BULGARIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Nikolay Cvetanov, Boris Lazarov, Asen Apostolov and Patrizia Foffo, Penkov, Markov & Partners
2. Authorisation 2.1 Licences and Application Process Application and Required Documents The bank authorisation procedure must be initi - ated by the founders of the bank through the Governor or the Deputy Governor of the BNB heading the Banking Supervision Department by submitting an application to the governing board of the BNB. Among many other things, the application should include: • the Articles of Association of the bank; • a document containing particulars of the subscribed capital and of the shareholders’ contributions; • the bank’s plan of activities with exhaustive description of the activities to be performed, customer and product structure, objectives, policy and strategy of the bank, financial fore - cast of development over a three-year period; • a description of the managing and organisa - tional structure of the bank; • a description of the internal control systems and the risk management systems, as well as an anti-money laundering programme; • the names and addresses of the members of the supervisory board and the management board (or of the board of directors) of the bank, as well as information about their quali - fications and professional experience; • the name/business name and residence/ registered office of any persons who or which have subscribed for 3% and more than 3% of the voting shares and of the 20 biggest shareholders; • information regarding the beneficial owner of the entities which have direct or indirect quali - fying shareholding in the applicant; and • other documents specified by regulation or requested by the BNB, needed to estab - lish the circumstances necessary to assess
whether the conditions for granting or refus - ing a licence are met. Timeline The BNB shall decide whether a banking licence will be granted within three months of the sub - mission of the application and all of the required documents, but in any case, not longer than 12 months from receipt of the application. During the three-month review period, the BNB shall perform in-depth analysis of the filing and, among others, shall verify whether numerous circumstances are met. If no evidence is pro - vided that these additional requirements are met, the BNB shall refuse to grant a licence. The refusal shall be motivated and is not subject to an appeal. In this negative case of refusal, the applicant has the right to file a new application not earlier than 12 months after the initial refusal. Costs The BNB shall charge a fee of BGN100,000 (approximately EUR50,000) for the administra - tive costs related to the processing of appli - cations and documents for the issuance of a licence. Banking Services and Activities A bank may not carry out any activities other than those covered by its licence and specified by the CIA. Banking services and activities in Bulgaria fall into two categories – exclusive banking activities and non-exclusive banking activities. The exclusive banking activities may be car - ried out solely by legal entities holding a bank licence, non-EU banks licensed to operate in the Republic of Bulgaria and EU-banks, which provide services directly or through a branch
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