“Not an official EBA register and appears to be forged”, BaFin says of a rebuilt EU registry

The EBA register is the directory listing the credit and payment institutions authorised in the European Economic Area. Anyone who wants to know whether a provider really holds an authorisation looks there. That very act of looking is what a scheme targets, one the German financial regulator BaFin warned about on October 9, 2026: the operators of a supposed European bank directed prospective customers to check their authorisation in a register that sat under their own domain.

BaFin's wording is this: "The register displayed on this website is not an official EBA register and appears to be forged." It also names the address where the genuine directory sits: euclid.eba.europa.eu. The lesson is an uncomfortable one, because it demands one step more than before. Searching for a provider in the register is no longer enough. You first have to know whether the register you are looking at is real.

The BaFin Warning of October 9: a Rebuilt Register Under the Operator's Own Domain

BaFin published two consumer notices on unauthorised business that day. The first concerns offers on the websites vantex-bank(.)com and vantex-bank(.)net. According to the regulator, no credit institution by the name o...