1. Each Member State shall ensure that within its territory one or more investor-compensation schemes are introduced and officially recognized. Except in the circumstances envisaged in the second subparagraph and in Article 5(3), no investment firm authorized in that Member State may carry on investment business unless it belongs to such a scheme.

A Member State may, however, exempt a credit institution to which this Directive applies from the obligation to belong to an investor-compensation scheme where that credit institution is already exempt under Article 3(1) of Directive 94/19/EC from the obligation to belong to a desposit-guarantee scheme, provided that the protection and information given to depositors are also given to investors on the same terms and investors thus enjoy protection at least equivalent to that afforded by an investor-compensation scheme.

Any Member State that avails itself of that option shall inform the Commission accordingly; it shall, in particular, disclose the characteristics of the protective systems in question and the credit institutions covered by them for the purposes of this Directive, as well as any subsequent changes to the information supplied. The Commission shall inform the Council thereof.

2. A scheme shall provide cover for investors in accordance with Article 4 where either: