Following a warning made earlier this year that it planned to restrict trading in Turbos as retail losses in the product have topped €3.4 billion, German financial regulator BaFin has announced that it has indeed issued a product intervention measure for Turbo certificates.
BaFin’s new Turbo rules will take effect in June 2026.
The measures aim to strengthen investor protection in trading these highly speculative leveraged products. To this end, BaFin aims to ensure that the specific risks of these products are made transparent to retail investors.
What are Turbos
Turbos – also known as speeders or sprinters – are leveraged structured products, popular mainly with retail traders in certain regions of the EU (mainly The Netherlands and Germany). Turbos are exchanged traded leveraged instruments which provide an indirect (long or short) leveraged exposure to an underlying asset (such as a stock index, or company stock), with the potential loss limited to the amount paid for them.
BaFin’s counterpart in The Netherlands, the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), enacted similar restrictions on Turbos back in 2021.
New Turbo rules
BaFin’s product intervention measure restricts the marketing, distribution, and sale of turbo certificates to retail investors domiciled in Germany. Some of BaFin’s key new rules include:
- Risk waring. Issuers, providers, and intermediaries must now display a standardized risk warning.
- Survey. Intermediaries must conduct a survey prior to purchase that assesses investors’ knowledge of how turbo certificates work (“turbo basic knowledge”), and must repeat this survey at least every six months
- No bonuses. No monetary or non-monetary benefits, such as reduced order fees or new customer bonuses, may be granted in connection with the purchase of these products.
Dr. Thorsten Pötzsch, Executive Director of Securities Supervision and Asset Management at BaFin stated,
“With this measure, we ensure that retail investors are aware of the specific risks of turbo certificates before they invest. Turbo certificates can cause significant losses – making it all the more important to create transparency and raise investors’ risk awareness.”
Minor adjustments after consultation
BaFin conducted a public hearing on the draft product intervention measure (“General Administrative Order”) on May 21, 2025. By the deadline of July 3, 2025, 26 statements from citizens, associations, and institutions had been received. After evaluating the statements, the implementation period was extended from the original three to eight months. The product intervention measure will now enter into force on June 16, 2026.
“With the extended implementation deadline, we are taking into account the high technical and administrative effort required by the institutions,” explains Pötzsch. “During the hearing, the institutions indicated that they needed more time, particularly for implementing the risk warning and the turbo basic knowledge query in existing trading systems.”
Significant concerns for investor protection
Based on a comprehensive market investigation into turbo certificates, BaFin raised significant concerns regarding investor protection: A large proportion of retail investors (74.2 percent) suffered losses trading in turbo certificates over a five-year study period. On average, they lost €6,358 each. Their total losses during the study period amounted to more than €3.4 billion. Regarding investor protection, BaFin primarily criticized the high complexity of turbo certificates and the marketing and distribution practices of these products.
BaFin can restrict or prohibit the marketing, distribution , and sale of financial instruments if there are significant concerns about investor protection. This is governed by Article 42 of the European Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) and Section 15, Paragraph 1, Sentence 2 of the Securities Trading Act (Wertpapierhandelsgesetz) in conjunction with Article 42 of MiFIR.
On its website, BaFin informs consumers what they should consider when purchasing turbo certificates.
BaFin’s full announcement regarding Turbos can be seen here.
