Membership advantages

What do you get as members of BALII:

You get information and clarifications on legal novelties, training and other assistance in relation with the introduction of new legislation and regulations.

BALIF organizes regular seminars and courses in partnership with the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC), the Bulgarian Stock Exchange – Sofia (BSE), the Central Securities Depository (CSD), the National Revenue Agency (NRA) and other partners of the Association for the purpose of preparing its members for the necessary innovations and adaptation of their activities, saving them time needed for study in detail of regulatory issues and ramifications and providing information in accessible form as well as training the relevant staff of the investment firms.

Examples from 2017:

The training courses for the first half of the year were the following: Two seminars with NRA experts on the implementation of the provisions of the Tax and Social Insurance Procedure Code; Two workshops for portfolio managers and investment consultants on the topic “Third Generation Asset Allocation” and “Designing of Global Diversified Portfolios”. Two workshops were conducted on the new MiFID II requirements and reporting of regulated information under MiFID II and MiFIR.

You get ready-made templates for introduction of rules, policies, procedures and other framework documents that are mandatory for brokerages under their corresponding license.

BALII provides to members templates and samples of documents that are required by the regulations from every investment intermediary. This way, companies can reduce costs and time for the administrative work by simply customizing the vast amount of documentation to their license and activity.

Examples from 2017:

The members of BALII will receive in 2017 a calendar for the obligations under the newly introduced legislation as well as other guidelines.

You get support for business development through BALII active work in improving market conditions and creating new opportunities for the investment intermediaries.

BALII is one of the founders of the Capital Market Development Council, which includes all important institutions and industry and trade organizations in the non-banking financial sector, working on strategic market development, planning concrete measures to improve conditions, increase liquidity and industry capabilities. Within this strategy, BALII makes proposals for measures and actively participates in both the process of drafting bills and launching projects that the institutions promote and implement.

Examples from 2017:

In addition to contributing to the introduction of changes in laws and regulations, BALII has already achieved greater transparency on the market, with some proposals made – for example, the Central Securities Depository has started to provide statistics on the free float of shares of public companies and other data regarding the relevant issues on a daily basis. There are initiatives that are in the process of implementation: introduction of a voucher scheme for free of charge financing of IPOs of small and medium enterprises, employing European funds. Together with the CSD, the Association is working on the development of a lending pool which is a unified system for securities lending.

You are actively involved in shaping the legal framework and regulation of the market through the BALII representation.

BALII actively communicates with the institutions by taking part in in discussions and elaboration of draft bills. BALII participates in discussions with the regulator with regard to draft legislation and brings forth and defends opinions within the respective parliamentary committees.

Examples of 2017:

All draft bills and regulations in 2017 were subject of intense discussions with the active participation of BALII and most of the proposals made by the Association were accepted and introduced in the Public Offering of Securities Act, the Social Insurance Code (SIC), the MiFIA and Ordinances No. 13 and No. 41 on tender offers. Some of the improvements to the market as a result of BALII efforts are: introduction of remote and electronic contracting of investment services; expanding the services offered by investment intermediaries through their role as custodians (depositories) of collective investment schemes and other investment funds and as trustees of public issues of corporate bonds; greater transparency of the SOFIX (the main BSE index) input data; pension funds can now invest in IPOs; start-up companies can already use the capital market as source of financing through making public issues of bonds; amendments were introduced in the legal framework of the bond market removing certain deficiencies in the regime as well as in the conduct of tender offers; shortened deadlines for consideration of documents; the possibility of distributing interim (half-year) dividends was introduced, removing the requirement for public companies to have audited semi-annual financial statements for that purpose. BALII succeeded in persuading the institutions that there was no need for the issuance of an ordinance laying down the terms and conditions for granting of loans by investment intermediaries to investors, and that each intermediary had to autonomously manage the risks related to margin trading.

You get support in training and preparing staff members for the exams before the FSC of brokers and investment consultants.

BALII traditionally participates actively in the preparation and conducting of the examinations for brokers and investment consultants together with the FSC, and a representative of BALIF participates as member in the examination commission for brokers and investment consultants.

Examples of 2017:

Over the past 7 years, BALII and the Bulgarian Association of Asset Management Companies (BAAMC) have organized training courses for the candidates for brokers and investment consultants. Staff members of BALII participate in these courses with 20% -30% discounts on fees. The success rate of the candidates prepared is usually over 90%.

The Management Board of BALII represents the Association in the following institutions:

Council of Ministers, Council of European Affairs

Angel Rabadjiyski and Evgeny Jichev participate in Working Group 26 “Financial Services” of the Council of European Affairs – a structural unit of the Council of Ministers.

Financial Supervision Commission

Atanas Boychev is a member of the Examination Commission for Brokers and Investment Consultants with the FSC.
Radoslava Maslarska represents BALII in the Capital Market Development Council, which is coordinated by the FSC.

Investor Compensation Fund

Radoslava Maslarska is a member of the Management Board of the Investor Compensation Fund.

Bulgarian Stock Exchange

Lubomir Boyadjiev is a member of the Board of Directors of BSE-Sofia.
Nikolay Yalamov is Deputy Chairman of the Arbitration Court with the BSE.
Lubomir Boyadzhiev participates in the National Commission for Corporate Governance under the auspices of BSE-Sofia.

Central Securities Depository

Angel Rabadjiyski is a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Securities Depository.
Nikolay Meister is a member of the Arbitration Court at the Central Securities Depository.
Angel Rabadjiyski is a member of the Management Committee of the Financial Instruments Settlement Guarantee Fund.
Radoslava Maslarska and Stoyan Nikolov are members of the Users Committee of the Central Securities Depository.
Evgeny Jichev is a member of the Expert Working Group on Corporate Actions with the Central Securities Depository.
The Management Board of BALII supported the establishment and BALII is a member of the National Users Group (NUG) with the Central Securities Depository, created in connection with the European Central Bank Target 2 Securities project for a pan-European settlement platform for financial instruments transactions.

Business organizations

BALII is a member of the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria (CEIBG) and the Association of Industrial Capital in Bulgaria (BICA).

Economic and Social Council of the Republic of Bulgaria

The Management Board of BALII participates in the discussions of issues related to the capital market in meetings of the Economic and Social Council of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Commission for Consumer Protection

Anton Domozetsky, Atanas Boychev, Krassimir Kirov, Lyubomir Boyadjiev, Radoslava Maslarska and Stoyan Nikolov represent BALIF in the Conciliation Committees for the Capital Market with the Commission for Consumer Protection.

What documents are required to apply for BALII membership:

A copy of the license issued by the FSC for carrying out activity as an investment intermediary or a bank license issued by the Bulgarian National Bank including the performance of investment services and activities;
A copy of the decision for entry in the Commercial Register;
The decision of the competent body of the investment intermediary / candidate bank for membership in BALII;

4. Declaration signed by the representatives of the company for the acceptance and observance of the Statute and other internal acts of BALII.