EU View Bulletin – March 2026

We are delighted to share with you the latest CRD6 Bulletin. Here you will find insights and information about the latest intel we have gathered across the EEA jurisdictions on the transposition of Article 21C of CRD6. As a reminder, Member States were expected to adopt and publish measures implementing CRD6 by 10 January 2026, with the provisions of Article 21C coming into force on 11 January 2027.

To assist you, our Quick Reference Guide, which is included in the EU View subscription and is available to CRD6 Manager subscribers, gives an overview of the implementation progress in the Member States.

As mentioned, our CRD6 Manager is a subscription service tracking implementation of CRD6 articles centrally as well as in key EU jurisdictions and complements our CRD6 offering. We would be pleased to arrange a demonstration and share additional details, so do reach out to discover how this resource can support your implementation.

We have included more detail below and, as always, we would be very happy to provide further information on the EU View subscription, our CRD6 solutions and the wider cross-border services, so please contact us at CRD6@simmons-simmons.com, if you are interested in any of these areas.

CRD6 Implementation progress

Under CRD6, Member States were required to adopt and publish implementing legislation by 10 January 2026, with effect from 11 January 2027. By the deadline, only Hungary and Italy had joined two other Member States in enacting final legislation, with Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia passing final laws since. Based on discussions with local counsel, adoption in the remaining Member States is expected in the spring or later in Q2. Although this delay should not affect the Article 21C implementation deadline of 11 January 2027, there is still uncertainty over how individual Member States will interpret and apply its requirements and exemptions.

Please see the summary of the implementation status across the EEA below:

• 7 Member States have final legislation (since the last update, with the addition of Croatia and Slovakia):
  • Croatia - Article 21C provisions entered into force on 13 March 2026
  • Czech Republic - Article 21C provisions entered into force on 11 January 2026
  • Denmark - Article 21C provisions will enter into force on 1 January 2027
  • Hungary, Italy, Slovakia and Slovenia - Article 21C provisions will enter into force on 11 January 2027.
• 15 Members States have published draft legislation: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden
• 8 Member States are yet to publish draft legislation: Austria, Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, Spain.

For more detail, please refer to the Quick Reference Guide available on the CRD6 Manager and EU View portals.

CRD6, Article 21C Transposition Developments – what is the latest?

Looking across the Member States, this is what we have been hearing in the past month:

Croatia

The implementing law, including the provisions of Article 21C, came into force on 13 March 2026. The law does not provide for grandfathering or any transitional period that would allow existing contracts to continue. Counsel informed that core banking services as defined in CRD6 are already subject to a banking licence requirement in Croatia, and the requirement for a non-EU firm to establish a local branch in order to provide these services on a cross-border basis existed even before the transposition of Article 21C requirements, albeit without full implementation to date. The Croatian implementing law remains subject to secondary implementing by-laws, which must be adopted within 12 months; counsel expects that this may occur sooner given that Croatia was delayed in transposing CRD6.

Slovakia

The new Banking Act transposing CRD6 was formally adopted on 27 February 2026. The law provides for grandfathering. We understand from counsel that the MiFID ancillary services exemption appears to be compliant with CRD6 - the TCB requirement is not triggered where a third country bank provides investment services and investment activities in the territory of the Slovak Republic pursuant to the Investment Services Act and, in connection with those activities, carries out ancillary activities (in particular deposit-taking or lending activities) the purpose of which is to provide those investment services.

Norway

Draft legislation was published by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance on 20 March 2026 and is currently awaiting review by counsel.

Estonia

The draft law has been passed from the Government to the Parliament, and the legislative proceedings were initiated on 16 March 2026. However, at this stage, the estimated timeframe for adoption of the legislation is still unknown.

EU Commission’s action over failure to transpose CRD6#

The European Commission published a press release announcing it is taking action against several member states for failure to transpose CRD6 into their national laws. The Commission explains in the press release that 22 member states have failed to communicate full transposition of the Directive to the Commission. Therefore, it has opened infringement procedures by sending a letter of formal notice to Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden. The member states concerned have two months to respond, complete their transposition and notify their measures to the Commission.

^{*We note that Croatia and Slovakia have enacted the final implementing laws recently – see above.}

We will keep you updated with new developments but if you have any questions in the meantime, please contact us at crd6@simmons-simmons.com.

What are we talking to clients about?

• We are continuing to assist clients with queries on local implementation in the Member States that have adopted final legislation, particularly regarding the grandfathering and reverse solicitation exemptions and their likely application by local regulators.
• We are helping clients with updating their internal cross border frameworks to reflect the CRD6 requirements.
• We are supporting clients with the review of their existing transactions and the assessment of new opportunities which they are contemplating ahead of the effective dates of grandfathering and Article 21C.

If you would like advice on these topics or anything else relating to CRD6, please get in touch at crd6@simmons-simmons.com and we will be very happy to help.

Our CRD6 Solutions

We offer a range of solutions that focus on CRD6 in general and Article 21C specifically:

• The EU View service provides a Quick Reference Guide for each EU jurisdiction with an overview of the progress of implementation of the key provisions, including Article 21C.
• The CRD6 Manager is tracking all articles in CRD as implemented centrally, such as EBA guidance, as well as locally in key EU locations. CRD6 Manager Lite is focusing specifically on Article 21C. This service will keep subscribers updated on any pertinent issues e.g. what constitutes a service "in" a Member State, gold-plating, continued application of any local exemptions, local interpretation of exemptions. As part of the tool, we are providing an FAQ tracker with frequently asked questions we receive from clients, and which will provide views and advice from Counsel on interpretation, implementation and application to various business lines and products.
• The navigator CRD6 tracker will cover high-level information of some of the key fundamentals and impacts on the navigator guidance and is available for all existing navigator subscribers.

All solutions will be updated on a monthly basis, and you will be notified of the latest changes in relation to CRD6.

For more information on how to subscribe, pricing or to request a demo of any of the above solutions, please contact us at CRD6@simmons-simmons.com.