Country _ Name
SectionTitle
Trading platforms / social trading platforms / signal following
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FinTechs belonging to this category operate trading platforms or online marketplaces for investment opportunities or certain financial contracts – e.g. securities, factoring etc. and sometimes furthermore provide contact to financial experts and tools for the decision-making.

FinTech-signalling and social trading platforms provide users with the opportunity to exchange opinions on financial investments and offer signal providers and traders the possibility to make their securities portfolio publicly visible. This way the portfolios can be linked to and followed by other traders via the platform automatically, so that the trading and investment strategy of the followed traders can be copied.

The platform often cooperates with a financial services provider or a credit institution where both the trader and the follower hold their securities accounts, and which execute the orders both of the trader and the follower and to which the platform passes on the trading decisions.

Introduction

Attitude of the country towards trading, social trading or signalling platforms

This part of FinTech seems to remain widely unknown to Croatian population but is expected to become more recognised and to grow as the market develops.

Legal affairs

Obligations and requirements to provide trading, social trading or signalling platforms described above

The CMA provides a legal framework for a multilateral trading facility (MTF) and defines it as a multilateral system, operated by an investment firm or a market operator, which brings together multiple third-party buying and selling interests in financial instruments in a way that results in a contract in accordance with the CMA.

The investment firm which intends to establish MTF in Croatia, needs to obtain a prior approval for managing a MTF from HANFA, with a notification to ESMA in the process. The prior approval shall be issued by HANFA after all necessary documentation has been submitted, which includes information on the trading system, access to the trading system, expected system users, a detailed description of the functioning of the MTF etc.

The CMA prescribes additional obligations for an investment firm operating a MTF, which include, inter alia, an obligation to prescribe and enforce non-discretionary rules for the execution of orders in the system, provide undisrupted and timely conclusion of transactions as part of the MTF, ensure, where possible, there is sufficient publicly available information on financial instruments traded within the MTF it operates to enable users of the system to make investment decisions, ensure fair and orderly trading and pricing, including reference prices and efficient execution of orders, prescribe and apply measures and procedures for regular monitoring of the activities of its users in order to identify possible violations of rules, irregular trading conditions or conduct that contains indications of market abuse, provide mechanisms for efficient settlement of transactions concluded within the MTF system and transparently inform its users about the obligations regarding the settlement of transactions concluded within the system.
 

Additional comments regarding the legal situation for trading, social trading or signalling platforms or what FinTech’s must be aware of in this business area

N/A.

Economic conditions

Market size for trading, social trading or signalling platforms and biggest companies in this business area

The market for MTFs does not seem to be particularly developed. There is one MTF in Croatia (and Slovenia) called Progress Market, managed by the Zagreb Stock Exchange in cooperation with Ljubljana Stock Exchange as a MTF operator. More information is available on the official website of the MTF (

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