FinIA (FINIG)

On 4 November 2015, the Federal Council published a Bill to parliament for a Financial Services Act (FinSA) and a Financial Institutions Act (FinIA). As expected, the FinIA proposes to revise the regulatory architecture for financial institutions. Instead of the current sectorial approach, the FinIA proposes to introduce a regulatory pyramid with a light regulatory framework for asset manager and trustees, and an increasingly more stringent regime for collective asset, securities houses and, at the top, banks. By Rashid Bahar (Reference: CapLaw-2016-7)

Under current Swiss law, portfolio managers, which are not acting as asset managers for collective investment schemes, and trustees are not subject to a comprehensive prudential supervision. Portfolio managers and trustees are only required to register with a self-regulatory organization in order to comply with Swiss anti-money laundering laws. Other financial services providers, most notably banks, have criticized this lack of regulatory oversight. Furthermore, the current Swiss regulatory framework for portfolio managers is not in line with international regulatory standards, such as the EU/EEA’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). This situation is about to significantly change under the proposed…