German intermediaries required to consider sustainability preferences

With effect from 20 April 2023, the requirement to collect information on sustainability preferences from clients has been extended to financial investment intermediaries domiciled in Germany.

What's changed?

On 19 April 2023, a Regulation was published in the German Federal Law Gazette, which updates

• the Trade Notification Ordinance (Gewerbeanzeigeverordnung) and
• the Financial Investment Intermediaries Ordinance (Finanzanlagenvermittlungsverordnung - FinVermV).

The Regulation (which is only available in German) came into force the following day, ie 20 April 2023.

What's the background to this?

Previously, the FinVermV only contained a fixed reference, which covered the original version of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 and its amendment by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/2294. This meant that later amendments to Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565  did not apply.

However, the new Regulation changes this to a dynamic reference, so Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/565 applies "as amended".

As a result, the additional requirements introduced by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/1253 now also apply to financial investment intermediaries (Finanzanlagenvermittler) in the meaning of Sec. 34f para. 1 sent. 1 of the German Trade Code (Gewerbeordnung).

Investment firms have been subject to the requirement when providing investment advice and financial portfolio management services since 2 August 2022.

For more information, please see our client notes published on our Sustainable Financing and ESG Investment microsite.