Glossary
The terms you will meet on an authorisation record, in plain language.
Authorisation
An authorisation is the permission a national authority gives a company to carry out financial business. It is granted to a named legal entity, for a defined list of services, and it can be restricted or withdrawn at any time — which is why the register, not the company website, is the source to trust.
Supervisor
The supervisor is the public authority that checks, on an ongoing basis, that an authorised institution still meets its obligations. Every European country has one; the largest banks in the euro area are supervised jointly with the European Central Bank.
Deposit guarantee
In the European Union, deposits held with an authorised credit institution are covered up to €100,000 per depositor and per institution, by the guarantee scheme of the country that granted the licence. Payment and e-money institutions are not covered: they must instead keep client funds separate from their own, which protects you differently.
EEA passporting
An institution authorised in one European Economic Area country may offer its services in the others without asking for a new licence. So the bank serving you may be supervised abroad: read the country on its record, because that country decides which register applies and which guarantee scheme covers you.
BIC / SWIFT code
The BIC identifies a financial institution internationally, usually in eight or eleven characters: four for the institution, two for the country, two for the location. It tells you where an institution is established, but on its own it is not proof that the institution is authorised.
IBAN
An IBAN starts with the two-letter code of the country where the account is held. A company may quote you an IBAN from a country other than yours and that is lawful under the single market — but it tells you which register and which guarantee scheme actually apply to your money.
PSD2
The second Payment Services Directive governs payment accounts across the Union. In practice it gives you strong customer authentication, a right to dispute unauthorised transactions, and the ability to let a licensed third party access your account only with your explicit consent.
MiFID II
MiFID II covers investment services: advice, order execution, portfolio management. An institution authorised under it must assess whether a product suits you, disclose its costs, and tell you how it is paid — obligations that do not apply to a plain payment account.