FinSA (FIDLEG)

The new Financial Services Act will require all providers of financial services to be affiliated with an ombuds institution. This requirement is the only substantially new element remaining from a broad set of proposals to strengthen the enforcement of clients’ rights. Parliament ultimately opposed the introduction of new procedural mechanisms specifically for the financial services industry, such as collective action instruments and changes to the ‘loser pays’ rule. By Thomas Werlen / Jonas Hertner (Reference: CapLaw-2018-60)

The Financial Services Act (FinSA), which is expected to enter into force on 1 January 2020, will introduce a new registration duty for client advisers of Swiss financial service providers not subject to prudential regulation and client advisers of foreign financial institutions. Today, no such registration requirement exists with the exception of similar obligations for untied insurance intermediaries, who have to register with the public register kept by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). Under the new regime, client advisers will be required to register in a register maintained by one or more registration bodies licensed by FINMA. To register,…

The following article deals with the differences between the rules of conduct under MiFID II and FinSA. In the first part, the initial situation is described. Subsequently, the individual differences are discussed in more detail. The main differences in regulation can be found in the areas of client segmentation, definition of the service types, appropriateness and suitability test and dealing with retrocessions. By Peter Sester / Dario Sutter (Reference: CapLaw-2018-62)

The introduction of the concept of an “offer” according to Art. 3 let. g FinSA as a replacement of the current notion of a “distribution” pursuant to Art. 3 CISA will lead to a number of consequences for the Swiss financial industry as well as for foreign financial services providers acting on a cross-border basis into Switzerland. The new concept is more flexible as the current notion of a “distribution”, but also raises a number of delicate questions which need to be clarified. The object of this article is to provide a first analysis of the salient features and challenges of the current and future regimes and…

In December 2016, the Swiss Council of States as the first chamber of Swiss parliament discussed the proposed Financial Services Act. If enacted as currently drafted, the act will impose new requirements on financial services providers and introduce a new Swiss prospectus regime. Modeled largely after the EU prospectus framework, the new prospectus regime will be a veritable paradigm change to Swiss capital market regulation, introducing a number of novelties for issuers of securities in the Swiss market, such as the requirement for an ex ante approval for most financial instruments, coupled with some important long-awaited explicit exemptions from such…

More regulation and digitization are two important trends that are currently reshaping the financial industry in Switzerland. In this context, the Swiss Federal Council has proposed the creation of a specific new FinTech regulation that shall be particularly relevant for business models in the overlapping areas of these two topics and has mandated the Federal Department of Finance (FDF) to develop a consultation draft that further specifies the “Three Element Approach” of the Swiss Federal Council. On 1 February 2017, the FDF published its related Explanatory Report on the Amendment of the BA and BO (FinTech). This article contains a…

After having been discussed throughout 2016 in various sessions of the Economic Affairs and Taxation Committee of the Swiss Federal Council of States (WAK-S), on 14 December 2016 the new Federal Financial Services Act (Finanzdienstleistungsgesetz; FIDLEG) was finally resolved on by the Federal Council of States (SR). Compared to the bill of the Federal Council (the Swiss government), the SR resolved on a number of amendments that will, in certain areas, substantially liberalize the proposed regulatory regime to be complied with at the point of sale. Starting this year, the bill is now before the other chamber of Swiss parliament, the…

In CapLaw-2016-5, Enrico Friz outlined in detail the new duty of manufacturers of financial instruments to produce a key information document (KID, Basisinformationsblatt) for all financial instruments. This duty shall be implemented by the Financial Services Act (FinSA) which will likely be set into force during the course of 2018 and is currently being debated in the Swiss Parliament. The Council of States has, with rather minor amendments, approved the draft FinSA produced by the Federal Council in December 2016. The National Council will discuss the FinSA in one of its upcoming sessions. This contribution summarizes the changes to the…

By Thomas Werlen / Matthias Portmann / Jonas Hertner (Reference: CapLaw-2017-05) This article is an update of CapLaw-2016-4 in which the Dispatch on the draft Financial Services Act (FinSA) was discussed with a focus on Title 5 aimed to facilitate the enforcement of the rights of clients vis-à-vis Financial Services Providers (FSP). On 4 November 2015, the Swiss Federal Council adopted the Dispatch on the draft FinSA, sending it to parliament for consideration. With regard to the enforcement of rights, the draft proposed three elements: (1) a stricter disclosure obligation of FSP to provide documentation to clients, (2) an obligation…