Proposition 51K2213

Projet de loi relatif à l'intermédiation en services bancaires et en services d'investissement et à la distribution d'instruments financiers.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

Dec. 4, 2003

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

bank banking banking profession financial institution

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Discussion ¶

March 8, 2006 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, in the discussion of this bill, the Minister indicated that the bill was the result of a parliamentary initiative by Mr. Luc Willems in the Senate and that a bill was also submitted in the Chamber by Mr. Georges Lenssen, Bart Tommelein and Guy Hove. This includes banking mediation and the distribution of financial instruments.

The text was sufficiently amended to technically update a proposed measure and has also been the subject of numerous talks and meetings with the CBFA. There was a huge consensus in the committee on the project.

There was an important knock-out point, which I will not extend very long. I think Mr. Tommelein will be talking about this. It was mainly about the fact that the scope of the European Directive is limited to the investment products and that, in order to mitigate the risks, the CBFA has extended the prohibition imposed by the Directive on the holding of cash by intermediaries to other banking products, as Mr Tommelein stressed.

There was some discussion about this, but eventually everything led to an unchanged text that was approved with 12 votes in favour and 1 abstinence. Only Article 12 was approved by 12 votes and 2 abstentions. Therefore, we can speak of a virtually unanimous decision.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, together with Mr. Georges Lenssen and Mr. Guy Hove, I have submitted a bill in the House in the same sense. I am therefore pleased that the bill submitted by the Senate can be approved.

I would like to come back to the ban on cash transactions. I am afraid that it could mean a breakdown of the statute. Several years ago, a survey by the Professional Association of Independent Banking and Insurance Intermediaries found that the vast majority of bank agents considered the status of bank broker meaningless if the broker was not allowed to make cash transactions.

Many of them have a clientele consisting largely of self-employed individuals, who bring their cash money to the bank every week. They would not be able to switch to the status of broker. I have compared it in the commission with a cafe that is not allowed to sell beer.

The reasoning for the prohibition of cash transactions was, in my opinion, a slightly excessive reference to the Directive of the European Parliament and of the European Council of 21 April 2004 on markets for financial instruments, which would prohibit the holding of cash.

Colleagues, the aforementioned Directive concerns investment products. We are talking about payment transactions. These are two different things. It is therefore a pity that it was not deeper into the question of whether a bank broker can actually do cash transactions.

Of course, I understand the fear expressed in the committee by some colleagues, namely the fear of how the liability will be held. However, that argument should not be raised a priori in order to prohibit cash transactions. In financial matters, a risk can never be completely excluded when there are intermediaries.

By the way, it is not just about independent intermediaries, but also servants or directors of offices where there are sometimes problems. Remember Daisy Ragolle, who scammed Banque Lyonnais for 91 million euros. She was not a self-employed, but an ordinary worker.

In practice, we find that many bank agents cumulate their status with the status of insurance broker. In practice, insurance products such as Tak-21 and Tak-23 from various insurance institutions are already sold by independent intermediaries who are entitled to receive cash.

Therefore, it is not very logical that cash transactions for bank brokers could not.

However, my colleagues, I am not prepared to make this a necklace. After all, I am convinced that the status of bank broker even without cash transactions will have a useful, added value. In addition, cash fines become increasingly important. It would therefore not be wise to postpone the approval of the bill in the long run, merely because of the ban on cash transactions.

In the committee, I abstained from the articles that exclude cash transactions. For the rest, I will approve the draft.