On 28 August 2019, the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (Autoriteit Financiële Markten AFM) published a news item addressing the licence obligation for proprietary trading firms (handelaren voor eigen rekening), in particular in case orders are executed on behalf of clients.
The AFM indicates in order to determine whether someone is dealing on own account it is important to establish whose accounts are used for transactions and who is legally bound by the transactions.
An investment firm executing orders on behalf of clients could under circumstances also be considered to be dealing on own account. This is the case if an investment firm executes orders on behalf of clients on a trading venue using its own membership and subsequently direct these to the clients’ on a matched principal-basis (back-to-back trading).
View AFM’s press release (Dutch only), 28 August 2019.