Overview

Under Bulgarian law, financial institutions include nonbanking institutions that carry out certain non-exclusive banking activities, including:
(i) factoring;
(ii) financial leasing;
(iii) trading in money market instruments, foreign currency or derivatives;
(iv) brokering money;
(v) providing advice to companies about their capital structure, strategy, transformation or M&A transactions;
(vi) collateral transactions; and
(vii) extending credit by using funds that have not been raised in a public manner.

The requirements to carry out such activities were, until recently, fairly loose. Such entities had only to notify the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) within two weeks following the commencement of their activities.

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