What a CE mark actually promises

We are offered power banks constantly. They arrive in the same email every few weeks: a good price, a decent capacity, a photograph of a slim aluminium case, and a line about certification with a small CE mark beside it. Most of them we do not take.

The reason is worth explaining, because it is not obvious and almost nobody in this trade will tell you.

For most consumer electronics, a CE mark is not a test result. It is a declaration. The manufacturer assesses its own product against the relevant European directives, signs a Declaration of Conformity, and applies the mark itself. For certain higher-risk categories an independent body has to be involved, but for the ordinary run of chargers and battery packs, nobody outside the factory is required to have looked at it. The mark tells you the manufacturer says it conforms. It does not tell you that anyone checked.

Compare that with a UL listing or a TÜV certificate. Those are third-party marks. An independent laboratory has had the product, tested it against a published standard, and continues to audit the factory that makes it. That is a materially different promise, and it is why the two cost different amounts to obtain.

None of this makes a CE mark worthless. It makes it a claim rather than a verification, and the distinction matters more with a lithium cell than with a notebook. A battery pack is the one gift that can fail in a way that damages the person holding it, and it is a gift that tends to be ordered in the hundreds and handed to a company's own staff. If something goes wrong, the name on the case is the client's.

So what should you ask? Three things, and none of them requires any technical knowledge.

Ask who made the cells. A reputable pack uses cells from a named manufacturer, and a supplier who knows their product will tell you which. If the answer is vague, that is the answer.

Ask for the certificate, not the logo. A UL or TÜV certificate has a number on it, and the number can be looked up on the certifying body's own database. A logo on a product page cannot.

Ask what happens if a unit fails in month four. Not whether it will — what happens. The answer tells you whether the supplier expects to still be dealing with you in month four.

We do carry power banks. We carry the ones that survive those three questions, and we say no to the rest, which is usually most of what we are shown. It costs us some orders. It is the part of this job we are least willing to give up, because a gift that is unsafe is not a cheap gift. It is a liability with your logo on it.