Directive 2000/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the CouncilDangos y teitl llawn

Article 1 U.K. Definitions

For the purpose of this Directive:

1.

[F1 ‘ credit institution ’ shall mean:

(a)

an undertaking whose business is to receive deposits or other repayable funds from the public and to grant credits for its own account; or

(b)

an electronic money institution within the meaning of Directive 2000/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 September 2000 on the taking up, pursuit and prudential supervision of the business of electronic money institutions (1) .]

For the purposes of applying the supervision on a consolidated basis, shall be considered as a credit institution, a credit institution according to the first paragraph and any private or public undertaking which corresponds to the definition in the first paragraph and which has been authorised in a third country.

For the purposes of applying the supervision and control of large exposures, shall be considered as a credit institution, a credit institution according to the first paragraph, including branches of a credit institution in third countries and any private or public undertaking, including its branches, which corresponds to the definition in the first paragraph and which has been authorised in a third country;

2.

‘authorisation’

shall mean an instrument issued in any form by the authorities by which the right to carry on the business of a credit institution is granted;

3.

‘branch’

shall mean a place of business which forms a legally dependent part of a credit institution and which carries out directly all or some of the transactions inherent in the business of credit institutions; any number of places of business set up in the same Member State by a credit institution with headquarters in another Member State shall be regarded as a single branch;

4.

‘competent authorities’

shall mean the national authorities which are empowered by law or regulation to supervise credit institutions;

5.

‘financial institution’

shall mean an undertaking other than a credit institution, the principal activity of which is to acquire holdings or to carry on one or more of the activities listed in points 2 to 12 of Annex I;

6.

‘home Member State’

shall mean the Member State in which a credit institution has been authorised in accordance with Articles 4 to 11;

7.

‘host Member State’

shall mean the Member State in which a credit institution has a branch or in which it provides services;

8.

‘control’

shall mean the relationship between a parent undertaking and a subsidiary, as defined in Article 1 of Directive 83/349/EEC, or a similar relationship between any natural or legal person and an undertaking;

9.

‘[F2 participation for the purposes of supervision on a consolidated basis and for the purposes of points 15 and 16 of Article 34(2)’

shall mean participation within the meaning of the first sentence of Article 17 of Directive 78/660/EEC, or the ownership, direct or indirect, of 20 % or more of the voting rights or capital of an undertaking;]

10.

‘qualifiying holding’

shall mean a direct or indirect holding in an undertaking which represents 10 % or more of the capital or of the voting rights or which makes it possible to exercise a significant influence over the management of the undertaking in which a holding subsists.

11.

‘initial capital’

shall mean capital as defined in Article 34(2)(1) and (2);

12.

‘parent undertaking’

shall mean a parent undertaking as defined in Articles 1 and 2 of Directive 83/349/EEC.

It shall, for the purposes of supervision on a consolidated basis and control of large exposures, mean a parent undertaking within the meaning of Article 1(1) of Directive 83/349/EEC and any undertaking which, in the opinion of the competent authorities, effectively exercises a dominant influence over another undertaking;

13.

‘subsidiary’

shall mean a subsidiary undertaking as defined in Articles 1 and 2 of Directive 83/349/EEC.

It shall, for the purposes of supervision on a consolidated basis and control of large exposures, mean a subsidiary undertaking within the meaning of Article 1(1) of Directive 83/349/EEC and any undertaking over which, in the opinion of the competent authorities, a parent undertaking effectively exercises a dominant influence.

All subsidiaries of subsidiary undertakings shall also be considered subsidiaries of the undertaking that is their original parent;

14.

‘Zone A’

shall comprise all the Member States and all other countries which are full members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and those countries which have concluded special lending arrangements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) associated with the Fund's general arrangements to borrow (GAB). Any country which reschedules its external sovereign debt is, however, precluded from Zone A for a period of five years;

15.

‘Zone B’

shall comprise all countries not in Zone A;

16.

‘Zone A credit institutions’

shall mean all credit institutions authorised in the Member States, in accordance with Article 4, including their branches in third countries, and all private and public undertakings covered by the definitions in point 1, first subparagraph and authorised in other Zone A countries, including their branches;

17.

‘Zone B credit institutions’

shall mean all private and public undertakings authorised outside Zone A covered by the definition in point 1, first subparagraph, including their branches within the Community;

18.

‘non-bank sector’

shall mean all borrowers other than credit institutions as defined in points 16 and 17, central governments and central banks, regional governments and local authorities, the European Communities, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and multilateral development banks as defined in point 19;

19.

‘[F3 multilateral development banks’

shall mean the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the Council of Europe Resettlement Fund, the Nordic Investment Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Fund, the Inter-American Investment Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency;]

20.

‘“full-risk”, “medium-risk”, “medium/low-risk” and “low-risk” off-balance-sheet items’

shall mean the items described in Article 43(2) and listed in Annex II;

21.

‘[F2 financial holding company’

shall mean a financial institution, the subsidiary undertakings of which are either exclusively or mainly credit institutions or financial institutions, at least one of such subsidiaries being a credit institution, and which is not a mixed financial holding company within the meaning of Directive 2002/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on the supplementary supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms in a financial conglomerate (2) ;

22.

‘mixed-activity holding company’

shall mean a parent undertaking, other than a financial holding company or a credit institution or a mixed financial holding company within the meaning of Directive 2002/87/EC, the subsidiaries of which include at least one credit institution;]

23.

‘ancillary banking services undertaking’

shall mean an undertaking the principal activity of which consists in owning or managing property, managing data-processing services, or any other similar activity which is ancillary to the principal activity of one or more credit institutions;

24.

‘exposures’ for the purpose of applying Articles 48, 49 and 50

shall mean the assets and off-balance-sheet items referred to in Article 43 and in Annexes II and IV thereto, without application of the weightings or degrees of risk there provided for; the risks referred to in Annex IV must be calculated in accordance with one of the methods set out in Annex III, without application of the weightings for counterparty risk; all elements entirely covered by own funds may, with the agreement of the competent authorities, be excluded from the definition of exposures provided that such own funds are not included in the calculation of the solvency ratio or of other monitoring ratios provided for in this Directive and in other Community acts; exposures shall not include:

• in the case of foreign exchange transactions, exposures incurred in the ordinary course of settlement during the 48 hours following payment, or

• in the case of transactions for the purchase or sale of securities, exposures incurred in the ordinary course of settlement during the five working days following payment or delivery of the securities, whichever is the earlier;

25.

‘group of connected clients’

shall mean:

• two or more natural or legal persons who, unless it is shown otherwise, constitute a single risk because one of them, directly or indirectly, has control over the other or others or

• two or more natural or legal persons between whom there is no relationship of control as defined in the first indent but who are to be regarded as constituting a single risk because they are so interconnected that, if one of them were to experience financial problems, the other or all of the others would be likely to encounter repayment difficulties;

26.

‘close links’

shall mean a situation in which two or more natural or legal persons are linked by:

(a)

participation, which shall mean the ownership, direct or by way of control, of 20 % or more of the voting rights or capital of an undertaking, or

(b)

control, which shall mean the relationship between a parent undertaking and a subsidiary, in all the cases referred to in Article 1(1) and (2) of Directive 83/349/EEC, or a similar relationship between any natural or legal person and an undertaking; any subsidiary undertaking of a subsidiary undertaking shall also be considered a subsidiary of the parent undertaking which is at the head of those undertakings.

A situation in which two or more natural or legal persons are permanently linked to one and the same person by a control relationship shall also be regarded as constituting a close link between such persons.

27.

‘recognised exchanges’

shall mean exchanges recognised by the competent authorities which:

(i)

function regularly,

(ii)

have rules, issued or approved by the appropriate authorities of the home country of the exchange, which define the conditions for the operation of the exchange, the conditions of access to the exchange as well as the conditions that must be satisfied by a contract before it can effectively be dealt on the exchange,

(iii)

have a clearing mechanism that provides for contracts listed in Annex IV to be subject to daily margin requirements providing an appropriate protection in the opinion of the competent authorities.

Textual Amendments

F1 Substituted by Directive 2000/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 September 2000 amending Directive 2000/12/EC relating to the taking up and pursuit of the business of credit institutions.

F2 Substituted by Directive 2002/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on the supplementary supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms in a financial conglomerate and amending Council Directives 73/239/EEC, 79/267/EEC, 92/49/EEC, 92/96/EEC, 93/6/EEC and 93/22/EEC, and Directives 98/78/EC and 2000/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.

F3 Substituted by Commission Directive 2004/69/EC of 27 April 2004 amending Directive 2000/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the definition of ‘multilateral development banks’ (Text with EEA relevance).

(1)

[F1 OJ L 275, 27.10.2000, p. 39 .]

(2)

[F2 OJ L 35, 11.2.2003 .]

Textual Amendments

F1 Substituted by Directive 2000/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 September 2000 amending Directive 2000/12/EC relating to the taking up and pursuit of the business of credit institutions.

F2 Substituted by Directive 2002/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on the supplementary supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms in a financial conglomerate and amending Council Directives 73/239/EEC, 79/267/EEC, 92/49/EEC, 92/96/EEC, 93/6/EEC and 93/22/EEC, and Directives 98/78/EC and 2000/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.