What are trust services?

When applying for licence, you must indicate the type of trust service you plan to provide. Below are the five categories of services that qualify as trust services.

Five categories of trust services

1. Being a director/partner of a legal entity/company
   Ultimate beneficial owners of an international structure often arrange for their object company to be managed or co-managed by a trust office. If your company acts as manager of an object company, you provide this service.
   
   
2. Providing an address or postal address for an object company and performing ‘additional activities’, such as record-keeping or preparing and filing tax returns (domicile plus)
   The ‘provision of an address or postal address for a legal entity or company’ qualifies as a trust service (domicile plus) if your company also performs ‘additional activities’, such as record-keeping. If no additional activities are performed, or the additional activities consist only of ‘receptionist work’ – putting through telephone calls and forwarding unopened mail and parcels – this service qualifies as ‘domicile only’. The latter is not a trust service. Additional activities include:
   
   • Advising or assisting object companies, with the exception of receptionist work only
   • Preparing and filing tax returns. Please note: you are not permitted to provide trust services and tax advice for the same customer
   • Compiling, reviewing or auditing financial statements
   • Performing any activities related to the compilation, reviewing or auditing of financial statements
   • Record-keeping
   • Recruiting directors
     
     
3. Selling or intermediating in the sale of legal entities
   Intermediation means that your company acts as an intermediary in the establishment of one or more agreements between the client and third parties. This involves more than just bringing the parties into contact; an intermediary performs activities to match supply and demand. Merely referring parties to others does not therefore qualify in principle as intermediation.
   
   
4. Acting as a trustee
   The trust office can act as a trustee on the basis of a trust deed, for example for a shareholding.
5. Performing general administrative acts for a legal entity or company
   

   By Order in Council, Section 2 of the Btt 2018 designates as an additional trust service: an authorised representative or otherwise legally valid representative who can perform general administrative acts for a legal entity or company. This pertains to all possible forms of representation, including a private power of attorney. This trust service is very similar in content to the trust service of acting as managing director: if a natural or legal person or entity performs binding managerial acts, then this person or entity is actually acting as a managing director. A power of attorney for the execution of an individual, defined act is not covered by this trust service.