Since 1998, enterprises providing financial services commercially or on a scale which requires a commercially organised business undertaking (financial services institutions) have, in principle, been supervised according to the same rules as credit institutions and, for this purpose, also require authorisation pursuant to section 32 (1) of the Banking Act. For further details on how to obtain authorisation, please consult the Notice on the granting of a licence to provide financial services pursuant to section 32 (1) of the Banking Act.

Financial services comprise

• investment broking,
• investment advice,
• operation of a multilateral trading system,
• placement business,
• operation of an OTF
• contract broking,
• portfolio management,
• own-account trading,
• crypto custody business,
• factoring,
• finance lease,
• asset management and
• limited custody business.

To be able to better monitor the “grey capital market”, the following were also classified as financial services:

• non-EEA deposit broking and
• foreign currency dealing

Anyone wishing not only to conduct banking business or to provide financial services within the meaning of section 1 (1a) sentence 2 numbers 1 to 4 and 11 but also to purchase or sell financial instruments for their own account also needs written authorisation from BaFin for this activity if he/she does not fulfil the preconditions for proprietary trading (proprietary business).

The Deutsche Bundesbank is involved in prudential supervision, in particular, through its role of receiving and evaluating the documents submitted in compliance with institutions' reporting requirements under the Banking Act.