(a)

‘crowdfunding service’ means the matching of business funding interests of investors and project owners through the use of a crowdfunding platform and which consists of any of the following activities:

(b)

‘loan’ means an agreement whereby an investor makes available to a project owner an agreed amount of money for an agreed period of time and whereby the project owner assumes an unconditional obligation to repay that amount to the investor, together with the accrued interest, in accordance with the instalment payment schedule;

(c)

‘individual portfolio management of loans’ means the allocation by the crowdfunding service provider of a pre-determined amount of funds of an investor, which is an original lender, to one or multiple crowdfunding projects on its crowdfunding platform in accordance with an individual mandate given by the investor on a discretionary investor-by-investor basis;

(d)

‘crowdfunding platform’ means a publicly accessible internet-based information system operated or managed by a crowdfunding service provider;

(e)

‘crowdfunding service provider’ means a legal person who provides crowdfunding services;

(f)

‘crowdfunding offer’ means any communication by a crowdfunding service provider, in any form and by any means, presenting sufficient information on the terms of the offer and the crowdfunding project being offered, so as to enable an investor to invest in the crowdfunding project;

(g)

‘client’ means any prospective or actual investor or project owner to whom a crowdfunding service provider provides, or intends to provide, crowdfunding services;

(h)

‘project owner’ means any natural or legal person who seeks funding through a crowdfunding platform;

(i)

‘investor’ means any natural or legal person who, through a crowdfunding platform, grants loans or acquires transferable securities or admitted instruments for crowdfunding purposes;

(j)

‘sophisticated investor’ means any natural or legal person who is a professional client by virtue of point (1), (2), (3) or (4) of Section I of Annex II to Directive 2014/65/EU or any natural or legal person who has the approval of the crowdfunding service provider to be treated as a sophisticated investor in accordance with the criteria and the procedure laid down in Annex II to this Regulation;

(k)

‘non-sophisticated investor’ means an investor who is not a sophisticated investor;

(l)

‘crowdfunding project’ means the business activity or activities for which a project owner seeks funding through the crowdfunding offer;

(m)

‘transferable securities’ means transferable securities as defined in point (44) of Article 4(1) of Directive 2014/65/EU;

(n)

‘admitted instruments for crowdfunding purposes’ means, in respect of each Member State, shares of a private limited liability company that are not subject to restrictions that would effectively prevent them from being transferred, including restrictions to the way in which those shares are offered or advertised to the public;

(o)

‘marketing communications’ means any information or communication from a crowdfunding service provider to a prospective investor or prospective project owner about the services of the crowdfunding service provider, other than investor disclosures required under this Regulation;

(p)

‘durable medium’ means an instrument which enables the storage of information in a way that is accessible for future reference and for a period of time that is adequate for the purposes of the information, and which allows for the unchanged reproduction of the information stored;

(q)

‘special purpose vehicle’ or ‘SPV’ means an entity created solely for, or which solely serves the purpose of, a securitisation within the meaning of point (2) of Article 1 of Regulation (EU) No 1075/2013 of the European Central Bank (19);

(r)

‘competent authority’ means the authority, or authorities, designated by a Member State in accordance with Article 29.