“32. In the light of the criterion thus applied by the Court in the judgment in CSC Financial Services , that is to say, the amendment, even potential, of the legal and financial situation as between the parties concerned, it must be found that, in the present case, as the Advocate General noted in point 53 of his Opinion, the underwriting guarantee at issue in the main proceedings meets the requirements laid down in that case-law. 33. Even if the share issue were ultimately to be entirely covered by market investors, so that the purchase of the remaining shares by the guarantor were no longer necessary, conclusion of a contract for an underwriting guarantee, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, would be liable of itself to create, alter or extinguish rights in ownership of shares, such a possibility being alone sufficient to classify such an underwriting guarantee as a transaction in securities within the meaning of that case-law.” 52. In Sparekassrnes Datacenter v Skatteministeriet (Case C-2/95 )[1997] STC 932 (“ SDC ”) the CJEU emphasised, at [20] that: “… according to settled case-law of the court, the terms used to describe the exemptions envisaged by art 13 of the Sixth Directive are to be interpreted strictly since these constitute exceptions to the general principle that turnover tax is to be levied on all services supplied for consideration by a taxable person (judgment in Case 348/87 Stichting Uitvoering Financiële Acties [1989] ECR 1737 , paragraph 13).”
“38. In that regard, the Court has previously held that a transfer is a transaction consisting in the execution of an order for the transfer of a sum of money from one bank account to another. It is characterised in particular by the fact that it involves a change in the legal and financial situation existing, on the one hand, between the person giving the order and the recipient and, on the other, between those parties and their respective banks; and, in some cases, between those banks. Moreover, the transaction which produces the change is solely the transfer of funds between accounts, irrespective of its cause. Thus, a transfer being only a means of transmitting funds, the functional aspects are decisive for the purpose of determining whether a transaction constitutes a transfer within the meaning of Article 135(1)(d) of the VAT Directive (see, to that effect, the judgments of5 June 1997 , SDC , C‑2/95, EU:C:1997:278 , paragraph 53, and of28 July 2011 , Nordea Pankki Suomi , C‑350/10, EU:C:2011:532 , paragraph 25). 39 Further, the wording of Article 135(1)(d) of the VAT Directive does not in principle preclude a transfer from being broken down into separate services which then constitute ‘transactions concerning’ transfers within the meaning of that provision (see, to that effect, judgment of5 June 1997 , SDC , C‑2/95, EU:C:1997:278 , paragraph 64). While it is not inconceivable that the exemption at issue may extend to services which are not transfers per se, the fact remains that that exemption can relate only to transactions which form a distinct whole, fulfilling in effect the specific, essential functions of such transfers (see, to that effect, judgment of5 June 1997 , SDC , C‑2/95, EU:C:1997:278 , paragraphs 66 to 68). 40 It follows from the foregoing that, in order to be characterised as a transaction concerning transfers within the meaning of Article 135(1)(d) of the VAT Directive, the services at issue must, viewed broadly, form a distinct whole, fulfilling in effect the specific, essential functions of a transfer and, therefore, having the effect of transferring funds and entailing changes in the legal and financial situation. In that regard, a service exempted under the VAT Directive must be distinguished from the supply of a mere physical or technical service. To that end, it is relevant to examine, in particular, the extent of the liability of the supplier of services, in particular the question whether that liability is restricted to technical aspects or whether it extends to the specific, essential aspects of the transactions (see, to that effect, judgments of5 June 1997 , SDC , C‑2/95, EU:C:1997:278 , paragraph 66, and of28 July 2011 , Nordea Pankki Suomi , C‑350/10, EU:C:2011:532 , paragraph 24). 41 It must also be stated that, since the functional aspects are decisive to the determination of whether a transaction concerns a transfer for the purposes of Article 135(1)(d) of the VAT Directive, the test that makes it possible to distinguish a transaction that has the effect of transferring funds and bringing about changes in the legal and financial situation within the meaning of the case-law cited in paragraphs 38 to 40 of this judgment, which falls within the scope of the exemption concerned, from a transaction that does not have such effects and therefore, is outside its scope, is whether the transaction under consideration causes the actual or potential transfer of ownership of the funds concerned, or fulfils in effect the specific, essential functions of such a transfer (see, to that effect, judgment of28 July 2011 , Nordea Pankki Suomi , C‑350/10, EU:C:2011:532 , paragraph 33). 42 In that regard, while the fact that the service provider concerned may directly debit and/or credit itself an account, or again act by means of accounting entries in accounts belonging to the same account holder, allows, in principle, the conclusion that that condition is met and that the service under consideration is exempted (see, to that effect, judgment of13 March 2014 , ATP PensionService , C‑464/12, EU:C:2014:139 , paragraphs 80, 81 and 85), the mere fact that that service does not directly involve such a task does not however mean that the possibility of its being within the scope of the exemption at issue should be immediately ruled out, given that the interpretation described in paragraph 38 of this judgment does not presuppose any particular method for effecting transfers (see, to that effect, judgment of13 March 2014 , ATP PensionService , C‑464/12, EU:C:2014:139 , paragraph 80).”