FAQs about Oikocredit’s Investor Identification Campaign

To meet Oikocredit’s ‘know your customer’ (KYC) requirements for individual investors, we need the following information about you and the relevant documentation.  

Your privacy is important to Oikocredit, and we are committed to safeguarding all data that we process in relation to you.   

We collect data from you to fulfil the contracts we have concluded with you, as well as to meet our legal obligations.  

We will process your data in a secure manner in accordance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For more information, see our Privacy Statementand question 4 below. 

To ensure your data is secure against unauthorised access, we protect our systems using a combination of organisational and electronic access controls. These include firewall technology and other security measures.  

We also control internal access to systems to ensure that only authorised employees can access your data.

Oikocredit is not allowed to do business with investors we don't know well enough. We are legally obliged to verify and store the data we request from you in accordance with applicable legislations.  

If you do not fully respond to our first request for information and the documents we need, we will repeat our request for the information and documents.  

If, for whatever reason, you still do not share the requested data and documents with us, we may be required to take additional action regarding your investment. This will always be in accordance with the participation terms and conditions stated in our Prospectus that apply to your investment product. You can access this information on our website. It’s therefore important that you keep the contact details we have for you up to date. 

Common Reporting Standard (CRS) 

The CRS is legislation designed to prevent offshore tax evasion and is approved by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Council.  

The standard requires Oikocredit to report accounts held directly or indirectly by foreign tax residents to their local tax authority and requires authorities to exchange the information. For more details, see the OECD Common Reporting Standard (CRS) webpage. 

Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) 

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is the US law that combats tax evasion by US taxpayers worldwide.  

The Dutch government agreed with the US government to transpose this legislation into Dutch law. Because Oikocredit’s operations are based in the Netherlands, we must also comply with this legislation.  

In order to comply, we must determine whether investors are ‘US persons’ (individuals or legal entities).  

If an investor is classified as a US person and not exempt from paying US taxes, we will report their account(s) with Oikocredit to the Dutch tax authorities annually. The Dutch tax authorities will then share this information with the US tax authorities. 

For more information on FATCA, visit the US tax authorities’ FATCA webpage.

If you are a US person and not exempted by the US tax authorities from paying US taxes, Oikocredit must report your account and your taxpayer identification number (TIN) to the Dutch tax authorities.  

The Dutch tax authorities inform the US tax authorities about which US persons invest in Oikocredit. 

If you are a US person with more than one tax residency, such as if you also have German tax residency, Oikocredit is also required to report to the Dutch tax authorities the fact that you are a tax resident in another country. 

Oikocredit will always approach you through one of our officers (staff members) via the following email addresses: kyc.support@oikocredit.org (for identification campaign matters) or oi.support@oikocredit.org (for other matters). We ask you to answer to the same email addresses.  

An Oikocredit officer (staff member) may also approach you using their personal Oikocredit organisational email address ending @oikocredit.org and starting with their first initial and surname. We may also approach you via a telephone call or letter in the post on certain occasions.   

If you are unsure if you have been approached by Oikocredit, please ask for confirmation by email to kyc.support@oikocredit.org.