At the end of 2017, BaFin's Securities Supervision/Asset Management Directorate had 722 financial services institutions under its supervision (previous year: 708). It was also responsible for supervising 106 German branches of foreign undertakings (previous year: 94).

45 undertakings applied for authorisation to provide financial services in 2017 (previous year: 32). 12 financial services institutions applied to extend their authorisation to cover the provision of additional financial services (previous year: 8).

The number of tied agents at the end of 2017 was approximately 34,900 and was therefore unchanged (previous year: approximately 34,900). The number of liable undertakings fell slightly in 2017 from 188 to 179.

Changes due to MiFID II

Since 3 January 2018, in the wake of the implementation of MiFID II, liable undertakings have only been permitted to enter tied agents in the register of tied agents if they are domiciled in Germany. If a liable undertaking domiciled in Germany enters a tied agent domiciled in another country in the register of tied agents maintained by BaFin, BaFin will write to the institution requesting it to notify the termination of the activities. In the event that the institution does not comply with the request, BaFin can enforce the deletion of the entry compulsorily. If an institution refuses to comply, this may be taken into account when assessing the reliability of the senior management.

In the course of 2017, BaFin participated in 54 audits at financial services institutions (previous year: 39) and conducted 87 supervisory interviews with institutions (previous year: 97).

A total of 29 authorisations held by financial services institutions ended (previous year: 27), in most cases because they were returned.

New rules for applications for authorisation

Since 3 January 2018, securities trading firms or banks have been required to comply with Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/1943 when making an application for authorisation. Section 32 (1) sentence 2 of the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz) in conjunction with section 14 of the German Reports Regulation (Anzeigenverordnung) no longer apply to them.

Three copies of the application for authorisation must be submitted to BaFin in writing. The application form for authorisation as an investment firm, the form "List of members of the management body" and, where applicable, the notification of information on changes to the membership of the management body must be used for this purpose. The forms can also be found in the Annex to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1945, which prescribes the use of these common standard forms and templates across Europe in the interests of a uniform procedure.

Qualifying holding proceedings

In the course of a qualifying holding procedure carried out in 2017 in relation to an investment services institution, it came to BaFin's attention that there were various administrative offence proceedings against the intended acquirer, for some of which substantial administrative fines had been imposed. For this reason among others, BaFin had doubts about the financial soundness of the prospective acquirer. After receiving corresponding advice from BaFin, the acquirer abandoned its intention to purchase the significant shareholding in the institution.

A number of convictions of employees or senior managers of investment services institutions under supervision for market manipulation became known in 2017. They related to cases in which investment managers had carried out simultaneous purchases and sales in the same financial instrument for different clients via a stock exchange. In these circumstances, an evaluation of the case from the point of view of supervisory law is also required in addition to criminal sanctions. This may also result in formal measures against the senior managers under administrative law, for example a warning or the removal of the manager.