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Ordinance
on Financial Institutions
(Financial Institutions Ordinance, FinIO)

English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force.

of 6 November 2019 (Status as of 1 August 2021)

The Swiss Federal Council,

based on the Financial Institutions Act of 15 June 20181 (FinIA),

ordains:

Chapter 1 General Provisions

Section 1 Subject Matter and Scope of Application

Art. 1 Subject matter  

(Art. 1 and 72 Fin­IA)

This Or­din­ance gov­erns:

a.
the au­thor­isa­tion con­di­tions for fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions;
b.
the du­ties of the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions;
c.
the su­per­vi­sion of the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions.
Art. 2 Scope of application  

(Art. 2 Fin­IA)

This Or­din­ance ap­plies to fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions op­er­at­ing in or from Switzer­land.

Art. 3 Business ties  

(Art. 2 para. 2 let. a Fin­IA)

Com­pan­ies or units of a group are deemed to have busi­ness ties in­so­far as they provide fin­an­cial ser­vices or ser­vices in the ca­pa­city of trust­ee for oth­er com­pan­ies or units of the same group.

Art. 4 Family ties  

(Art. 2 para. 2 let. a Fin­IA)

1 The fol­low­ing per­sons are deemed to have fam­ily ties with one an­oth­er:

a.
re­l­at­ives by blood or by mar­riage in the dir­ect line;
b.
re­l­at­ives by blood or by mar­riage up to the fourth de­gree in the col­lat­er­al line;
c.
spouses and re­gistered part­ners;
d.
co­heirs and leg­atees from suc­ces­sion un­til com­ple­tion of the di­vi­sion of es­tate or al­loc­a­tion of the leg­acy;
e.
re­main­der­men and re­mainder­wo­men and re­sid­uary leg­atees in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 488 of the Swiss Civil Code2 (CC);
f.
per­sons liv­ing in a per­man­ent life part­ner­ship with a port­fo­lio man­ager or trust­ee.

2Fam­ily ties are deemed to ex­ist in­so­far as port­fo­lio man­agers man­age as­sets or trust­ees man­age in-house funds in fa­vour of per­sons who have fam­ily ties with one an­oth­er, if the port­fo­lio man­agers or trust­ees are dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly con­trolled by:

a.
third parties who have fam­ily ties with these per­sons;
b.
a trust, a found­a­tion or a sim­il­ar leg­al con­struct set up by a per­son with fam­ily ties.

3Para­graph 2 also ap­plies in­so­far as, in ad­di­tion to the per­sons with fam­ily ties, in­sti­tu­tions with a pub­lic or not-for-profit pur­pose are also be­ne­fi­ciar­ies.

Art. 5 Employee participation schemes  

(Art. 2 para. 2 let. b Fin­IA)

Em­ploy­ee par­ti­cip­a­tion schemes are deemed to be plans which:

a.
rep­res­ent a dir­ect or in­dir­ect in­vest­ment in the com­pany of the em­ploy­er or in an­oth­er com­pany which by vir­tue of a ma­jor­ity of votes or by some oth­er means is un­der uni­form man­age­ment with the com­pany of the em­ploy­er (group); and
b.
are dir­ec­ted at em­ploy­ees who at the time of the of­fer are not un­der no­tice.
Art. 6 Legally regulated mandates  

(Art. 2 para. 2 let. d Fin­IA)

Leg­ally reg­u­lated man­dates are in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
an ad­vance care dir­ect­ive in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 360–369 CC3;
b.
a rep­res­ent­at­ive deputy­ship to man­age as­sets in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 395 CC;
c.
a gen­er­al deputy­ship in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 398 CC;
d.
an ex­ecut­or­ship in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 517 and 518 CC;
e.
an es­tate ad­min­is­tra­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 554 and 555 CC;
f.
an of­fi­cial li­quid­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 593–596 CC;
g.
a rep­res­ent­a­tion of heirs in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 602 para­graph 3 CC;
h.
a bank­ruptcy ad­min­is­tra­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 237 para­graph 2 and Art­icle 240 of the Fed­er­al Act of 11April 18894 on Debt En­force­ment and Bank­ruptcy (DEBA);
i.
an ad­min­is­trat­ive re­ceiv­er­ship in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 295 DEBA;
j.
en­force­ment tasks un­der an or­din­ary com­pos­i­tion agree­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 314 para­graph 2 DEBA;
k.
an ap­point­ment as li­quid­at­or un­der a com­pos­i­tion agree­ment with as­sign­ment of as­sets in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 317 DEBA;
l.
an ap­point­ment as in­vest­ig­at­ing agent in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 36 of the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Su­per­vi­sion Act of 22 June 20075 (FIN­MASA);
m.
a re­struc­tur­ing man­date in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 28 para­graph 3 of the Bank­ing Act of 8Novem­ber 19346 (BankA), Art­icle 67 para­graph 1 Fin­IA and Art­icle 88 para­graph 1 of the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of
19 June 20157 (FMIA);
n.
a bank­ruptcy li­quid­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 33 para­graph 2 BankA, Art­icle 67 para­graph 1 Fin­IA, Art­icle 137 para­graph 3 of the Col­lect­ive In­vest­ment Schemes Act of 23June 20068 (CISA), Art­icle 88 para­graph 1 FMIA and Art­icle 53 para­graph 3 of the In­sur­ance Su­per­vi­sion Act of 17Decem­ber 20049 (ISA);
o.
a li­quid­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 23quin­quies para­graph 1 BankA, Art­icle 66 para­graph 2 Fin­IA, Art­icle 134 CISA, Art­icle 87 para­graph 2 FMIA and Art­icle 52 ISA.
Art. 7 Exemption  

(Art. 2 Fin­IA)

Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, the Swiss Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Su­per­vis­ory Au­thor­ity (FINMA) may fully or par­tially ex­empt man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets from the pro­vi­sions of the Fin­IA and the present Or­din­ance if:

a.
the pro­tect­ive pur­pose of the Fin­IA is not im­paired; and
b.
the man­age­ment of col­lect­ive as­sets has been del­eg­ated to them solely by the fol­low­ing per­sons:
1.
au­thor­ised parties in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 let­ters c and d as well as para­graph 2 let­ters f–i Fin­IA,
2.
au­thor­ised parties in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 13 para­graph 2 let­ters b–d CISA10, or
3.
for­eign com­pan­ies which with re­gard to or­gan­isa­tion and in­vestor rights are sub­ject to rules that are equi­val­ent to the pro­vi­sions of the Fin­IA and the CISA.
Art. 8 Significant group companies  

(Art. 4 para. 2 Fin­IA)

The func­tions of a group com­pany are sig­ni­fic­ant with re­spect to the activ­it­ies which re­quire au­thor­isa­tion if they are ne­ces­sary for the con­tinu­ation of im­port­ant busi­ness pro­cesses, in par­tic­u­lar in the areas:

a.
li­quid­ity man­age­ment;
b.
treas­ury;
c.
risk man­age­ment;
d.
mas­ter data ad­min­is­tra­tion and ac­count­ing;
e.
per­son­nel;
f.
in­form­a­tion tech­no­logy;
g.
trad­ing and set­tle­ment;
h.
leg­al and com­pli­ance.

Section 2 Common Provisions

Art. 9 Authorisation application and duty to obtain authorisation  

(Art. 5 and 7 Fin­IA)

1The fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion shall sub­mit an au­thor­isa­tion ap­plic­a­tion to FINMA. The ap­plic­a­tion shall con­tain all in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments re­quired to as­sess it, spe­cific­ally in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments on:

a.
the or­gan­isa­tion, in par­tic­u­lar on cor­por­ate gov­ernance and con­trol as well as on risk man­age­ment (Art­icles 9, 20, 21 and 33 Fin­IA);
b.
the place of man­age­ment (Art­icle 10 Fin­IA);
c.
the guar­an­tee (Art­icle 11 Fin­IA);
d.
tasks and the del­eg­a­tion of such tasks (Art­icles 14, 19, 26, 27, 34, 35 and 44 Fin­IA);
e.
min­im­um cap­it­al and col­lat­er­al (Art­icles 22, 28, 36 and 45 Fin­IA);
f.
cap­it­al (Art­icles 23, 29, 37 and 46 Fin­IA);
g.
the om­buds­man's of­fice (Art­icle 16 Fin­IA);
h.
the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion and the audit firm (Art­icles 61–63 Fin­IA).

2In­sur­ance com­pan­ies as defined in the ISA11 are ex­empt from the duty to ob­tain au­thor­isa­tion as a man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets.

3Ex­emp­tion from the duty to ob­tain au­thor­isa­tion as a trust­ee from FINMA can be gran­ted to trust­ees which act ex­clus­ively as trust­ees for trusts which were es­tab­lished by the same per­son or in fa­vour of the same fam­ily and which are held and mon­itored by a fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion which pos­sesses au­thor­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 5 para­graph 1 or Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 Fin­IA.

Art. 10 Change in facts  

(Art. 8 para. 2 Fin­IA)

Changes of ma­ter­i­al sig­ni­fic­ance for fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 Fin­IA are in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
changes in or­gan­isa­tion­al and part­ner­ship doc­u­ments;
b.
changes in the per­sons re­spons­ible for ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment;
c.
changes in min­im­um cap­it­al and cap­it­al ad­equacy, in par­tic­u­lar fall­ing short of min­im­um re­quire­ments;
d.
facts which are likely to call in­to ques­tion the good repu­ta­tion or the guar­an­tee of ir­re­proach­able busi­ness con­duct on the part of the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion or of the per­sons en­trus­ted with man­age­ment tasks as well as of own­ers of a qual­i­fied par­ti­cip­a­tion, spe­cific­ally the ini­ti­ation of crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings;
e.
facts which call in­to ques­tion prudent and sound busi­ness activ­ity on the part of the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion ow­ing to the in­flu­ence of own­ers of a qual­i­fied par­ti­cip­a­tion.
Art. 11 Form for submission  

(Art. 5, 7 and 8 Fin­IA)

1FINMA may de­term­ine the form for sub­mis­sion, spe­cific­ally for the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments:

a.
ap­plic­a­tions for au­thor­isa­tion from fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions and ne­ces­sary doc­u­ments;
b.
re­ports of changes in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 Fin­IA and ne­ces­sary doc­u­ments.

2It may des­ig­nate a third party as re­cip­i­ent of sub­mit­ted doc­u­ments.

Art. 12 Organisation  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

1Fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions must define their or­gan­isa­tion in their or­gan­isa­tion­al prin­ciples.

2They must de­scribe their area of busi­ness in fac­tu­ally and geo­graph­ic­ally pre­cise terms in the prin­cip­al doc­u­ments. The busi­ness area and its geo­graph­ic­al ex­tent must be com­men­sur­ate with the fin­an­cial pos­sib­il­it­ies as well as with the op­er­a­tion­al or­gan­isa­tion.

3Fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions must have per­son­nel in place who are ap­pro­pri­ately and suit­ably qual­i­fied to per­form their busi­ness activ­it­ies.

4Risk man­age­ment must en­com­pass all busi­ness activ­it­ies and be or­gan­ised in such a way that all the main risks can be iden­ti­fied, as­sessed, con­trolled and mon­itored.

Art. 13 Guarantee  

(Art. 11 Fin­IA)

1The ap­plic­a­tion for au­thor­isa­tion for a new fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion must con­tain in par­tic­u­lar the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ment­a­tion on the per­sons re­spons­ible for ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11 para­graphs 1 and 2 Fin­IA as well as on the own­ers of a qual­i­fied par­ti­cip­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11 para­graph 3 Fin­IA:

a.
nat­ur­al per­sons:
1.
de­tails of na­tion­al­ity, place of res­id­ence, qual­i­fied par­ti­cip­a­tions in the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion or in oth­er com­pan­ies and pending court and ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings,
2.
a cur­riculum vitae signed by the rel­ev­ant per­son,
3.
ref­er­ences,
4.
an ex­tract from the re­gister of con­vic­tions and the debt col­lec­tion re­gister or a cor­res­pond­ing at­test­a­tion;
b.
com­pan­ies:
1.
the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation,
2.
an ex­tract from the com­mer­cial re­gister or a cor­res­pond­ing at­test­a­tion,
3.
a de­scrip­tion of busi­ness activ­it­ies, the fin­an­cial situ­ation and, if ap­plic­able, the group struc­ture,
4.
de­tails of com­pleted and pending court or ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings.

2The en­vis­aged activ­ity at the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion as well as the nature of the in­ten­ded in­vest­ments must also be taken in­to ac­count when as­sess­ing the good repu­ta­tion, the guar­an­tee of ir­re­proach­able busi­ness con­duct and the re­quired spe­cial­ist qual­i­fic­a­tions of the per­sons re­spons­ible for ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment.

3Own­ers of a qual­i­fied par­ti­cip­a­tion must make a de­clar­a­tion to FINMA stat­ing wheth­er they hold the par­ti­cip­a­tion in ques­tion for their own ac­count or on a fi­du­ciary basis for third parties, and wheth­er they have gran­ted op­tions or sim­il­ar rights with re­spect to this par­ti­cip­a­tion.

4Se­cur­it­ies firms must sub­mit to FINMA with­in 60 days of the end of the fin­an­cial year a list of all per­sons who hold a qual­i­fied par­ti­cip­a­tion in them. This list shall con­tain de­tails on the iden­tity and per­cent­age hold­ing of all qual­i­fied par­ti­cipants as at the rel­ev­ant clos­ing date, as well as any changes re­l­at­ive to the pri­or-year clos­ing date. In ad­di­tion, the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ment­a­tion set out in para­graph 1 is to be sub­mit­ted for any qual­i­fied par­ti­cipants be­ing re­por­ted for the first time.

5Per­sons con­nec­ted through busi­ness ties or in any oth­er man­ner who jointly hold at least 10% of the share cap­it­al or votes of the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion or per­sons jointly sig­ni­fic­antly in­flu­en­cing the busi­ness activ­it­ies of the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion in an­oth­er man­ner are deemed to be a qual­i­fied par­ti­cipant in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11 para­graph 4 Fin­IA.

Art. 14 Public offer of securities on the primary market  

(Art. 12 Fin­IA)

1The ques­tion of what con­sti­tutes a pub­lic of­fer is de­term­ined on the basis of Art­icle 3 let­ters g and h of the Fin­an­cial Ser­vices Act of 15 June 201812 (FinSA).

2Of­fers to schemes and per­sons in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 65 para­graphs 2 and 3 are not deemed pub­lic.

Art. 15 Delegation of tasks  

(Art. 14 para. 1 Fin­IA)

1Tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 14 para­graph 1 Fin­IA are deemed del­eg­ated if fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions ap­point a ser­vice pro­vider to in­de­pend­ently and per­man­ently per­form in full or in part a ma­ter­i­al task, thereby chan­ging the cir­cum­stances un­der­ly­ing the au­thor­isa­tion.

2Ma­ter­i­al tasks are deemed to be:

a.
for port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees: tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 19 Fin­IA;
b.
for man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets: tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 26 Fin­IA;
c.
for fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies: tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32, Art­icle 33 para­graph 4 and Art­icle34 Fin­IA;
d.
for se­cur­it­ies firms: tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 41 and 44 Fin­IA.
Art. 16 Delegable tasks  

(Art. 14 para. 1 Fin­IA)

1Fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions may del­eg­ate to third parties only tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 14 para­graph 1 Fin­IA which do not need to be with­in the de­cision-mak­ing re­mit of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment or for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol.

2Del­eg­a­tion must not im­pair the ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of the op­er­a­tion­al or­gan­isa­tion.

3The op­er­a­tion­al or­gan­isa­tion is no longer deemed to be ap­pro­pri­ate if a fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion:

a.
does not have the ne­ces­sary per­son­nel re­sources and spe­cial­ist know­ledge to se­lect, in­struct and mon­it­or the third party and man­age the as­so­ci­ated risks, or
b.
does not have the ne­ces­sary rights to is­sue in­struc­tions to or con­trol the third party.
Art. 17 Delegation of tasks: responsibility and procedures  

(Art. 14 para. 1 Fin­IA)

1The fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions re­main re­spons­ible for the ful­fil­ment of su­per­vis­ory du­ties and when del­eg­at­ing tasks shall safe­guard cli­ents' in­terests.

2They shall agree with the third party in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text which tasks are to be del­eg­ated. The fol­low­ing in par­tic­u­lar are to be laid down in the agree­ment:

a.
the au­thor­it­ies and re­spons­ib­il­it­ies;
b.
any powers of sub-del­eg­a­tion;
c.
the third party's duty to render ac­count;
d.
the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions' rights of con­trol.

3Fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions shall lay down in their or­gan­isa­tion­al prin­ciples the tasks del­eg­ated as well as de­tails of the pos­sib­il­ity of sub-del­eg­a­tion.

4Del­eg­a­tion is to be defined such that the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion, its in­tern­al aud­it­ors, the audit firm, the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion and FINMA can in­spect and re­view the del­eg­ated task.

Art. 18 International business  

(Art. 15 Fin­IA)

1The no­ti­fic­a­tion which a fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion is re­quired to sub­mit to FINMA be­fore en­ga­ging in activ­it­ies abroad must con­tain all the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments needed to as­sess such activ­it­ies, spe­cific­ally:

a.
a busi­ness plan de­scrib­ing in par­tic­u­lar the nature of the planned trans­ac­tions and the or­gan­isa­tion­al struc­ture;
b.
the name and ad­dress of the of­fice abroad;
c.
the names of the per­sons re­spons­ible for ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment;
d.
the audit­ing firm;
e.
the name and ad­dress of the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity in the for­eign state in which the re­gistered of­fice or dom­i­cile is loc­ated.

2Fur­ther­more, the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion shall no­ti­fy FINMA of:

a.
the dis­con­tinu­ation of busi­ness activ­it­ies abroad;
b.
any ma­ter­i­al change in busi­ness activ­it­ies abroad;
c.
a change in audit firm;
d.
a change in the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity in the for­eign state in which the re­gistered of­fice or dom­i­cile is loc­ated.

Chapter 2 Financial Institutions

Section 1 Portfolio Managers and Trustees

Art. 19 Commerciality  

(Art. 3 and 17 Fin­IA)

1Port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees are deemed to pur­sue their activ­it­ies on a com­mer­cial basis and, with­in the mean­ing of anti-money laun­der­ing le­gis­la­tion, on a pro­fes­sion­al basis if they:

a.
thereby gen­er­ate gross earn­ings of more than CHF 50,000 per cal­en­dar year;
b.
es­tab­lish busi­ness re­la­tion­ships with more than 20 con­trac­tu­al part­ners per cal­en­dar year, each of which re­la­tion­ships is not lim­ited to a once-only activ­ity, or they main­tain at least 20 such re­la­tion­ships per cal­en­dar year; or
c.
have un­lim­ited power of dis­pos­al over as­sets be­long­ing to oth­ers, which as­sets ex­ceed CHF 5 mil­lion at any giv­en time.

2Activ­it­ies for schemes and per­sons in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2 para­graph 2 let­ters a, b, d and e Fin­IA are not factored in­to the as­sess­ment of com­mer­ci­al­ity.

3Para­graphs 1 and 2 do not ap­ply to port­fo­lio man­agers in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 para­graph 2 Fin­IA.

Art. 20 Additional authorisation  

(Art. 6 Fin­IA)

1Port­fo­lio man­agers also wish­ing to act as trust­ees re­quire ad­di­tion­al au­thor­isa­tion for this.

2Trust­ees also wish­ing to act as port­fo­lio man­agers re­quire ad­di­tion­al au­thor­isa­tion for this.

Art. 21 Entitlement to be subject to supervision by a supervisory organisation  

(Art. 7 para. 2 Fin­IA)

1Port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees are en­titled to be sub­ject to su­per­vi­sion by a su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion if their in­tern­al rules and their op­er­a­tion­al or­gan­isa­tion en­sure that the su­per­vis­ory re­quire­ments are sat­is­fied.

2A su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion can make sub­jec­tion to su­per­vi­sion de­pend­ent on port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees be­ing re­quired to main­tain spe­cial stat­utory pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity.

Art. 22 Change in facts  

(Art. 8 Fin­IA)

1Port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees shall no­ti­fy the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion of any changes in the facts on which its au­thor­isa­tion is based. The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion shall peri­od­ic­ally for­ward the changes to FINMA.

2If au­thor­isa­tion is re­quired in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 Fin­IA, FINMA will as part of its as­sess­ment hear the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion.

Art. 23 Organisation  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

1Two au­thor­ised sig­nat­or­ies must sign jointly. Art­icle 20 para­graph 2 Fin­IA re­mains re­served.

2Port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees must be able to be rep­res­en­ted by a per­son who has their place of res­id­ence in Switzer­land. This per­son must be a mem­ber of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment or of the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3. Art­icle 20 para­graph 2 Fin­IA re­mains re­served.

3With re­ser­va­tion as to Art­icle 20 para­graph 2 Fin­IA, FINMA may re­quire the port­fo­lio man­ager or trust­ee to ap­point a body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol the ma­jor­ity of whose mem­bers are not mem­bers of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment if:

a.
it has ten or more full-time po­s­i­tions or an­nu­al gross earn­ings of more than CHF 5 mil­lion; and
b.
the nature and scope of its activ­it­ies so de­mand.
Art. 24 Tasks  

(Art. 19 Fin­IA)

1The port­fo­lio man­ager shall en­sure that the as­sets en­trus­ted to it for man­age­ment are held in safe­keep­ing, se­greg­ated per cli­ent, with a bank pur­su­ant to the BankA13, a se­cur­it­ies firm pur­su­ant to the Fin­IA, a trad­ing fa­cil­ity for dis­trib­uted ledger tech­no­logy se­cur­it­ies (DLT trad­ing fa­cil­ity) in ac­cord­ance with the Fin­MIA14 or oth­er in­sti­tu­tion that is sub­ject to su­per­vi­sion equi­val­ent to that in Switzer­land.15

2It shall man­age the as­sets on the basis of au­thor­isa­tion giv­en in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text. The au­thor­isa­tion must be lim­ited to ad­min­is­trat­ive acts. If the port­fo­lio man­ager is en­trus­ted with the pro­vi­sion of fur­ther ser­vices which re­quire more far-reach­ing au­thor­isa­tions, it shall doc­u­ment the basis of these activ­it­ies.

3Port­fo­lio man­agers shall take meas­ures to avoid a break-off of con­tact with cli­ents and to pre­vent cli­ent re­la­tion­ships from be­com­ing dormant. If a busi­ness re­la­tion­ship be­comes dormant, the port­fo­lio man­ager shall take suit­able steps to en­sure that dormant as­sets are de­livered to be­ne­fi­ciar­ies.

4Para­graph 2 ap­plies by ana­logy to trust­ees. Moreover, trust­ees must, with­in the frame­work of the law ap­plic­able to the trust:

a.
act in the best pos­sible in­terests of be­ne­fi­ciar­ies and with the re­quired level of skill, care and di­li­gence;
b.
take ap­pro­pri­ate or­gan­isa­tion­al pre­cau­tions to avoid con­flicts of in­terest or dis­ad­vant­ages for be­ne­fi­ciar­ies as a res­ult of con­flicts of in­terest.

5If the ren­der­ing of ad­di­tion­al ser­vices in­creases the risks to which port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees are ex­posed, this must be taken in­to ac­count with­in the scope of su­per­vi­sion (Art­icles 61 and 62 Fin­IA).

13 SR 952.0

14 SR 958.1

15 Amended by No I 7 of the O of 18 June 2021 on the Ad­apt­a­tion of Fed­er­al Law to De­vel­op­ments in Dis­trib­uted Ledger Tech­no­logy, in force since 1 Aug. 2021 (AS 2021 400).

Art. 25 Qualified managers  

(Art. 20 Fin­IA)

1A qual­i­fied man­ager is deemed to sat­is­fy the re­quire­ments for train­ing and pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence at the time of as­sum­ing man­age­ment du­ties if she or he can fur­nish evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:

a.
five years of pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence:
1.
in the case of port­fo­lio man­agers, in port­fo­lio man­age­ment for third parties,
2.
in the case of trust­ees, with­in the frame­work of trusts; and
b.
train­ing of at least 40 hours:
1.
in the case of port­fo­lio man­agers, in port­fo­lio man­age­ment for third parties,
2.
in the case of trust­ees, with­in the frame­work of trusts.

2Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may grant ex­emp­tions from these re­quire­ments.

3Port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees shall en­gage in reg­u­lar con­tinu­ing pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment to main­tain the skills ac­quired.

4They shall take the ne­ces­sary pre­cau­tions to en­sure the con­tinu­ation of busi­ness op­er­a­tions in the event that the qual­i­fied man­ager is pre­ven­ted from act­ing or dies. If third parties from out­side the com­pany are ap­poin­ted, the cli­ents must be in­formed ac­cord­ingly. In all oth­er re­spects, Art­icle 14 Fin­IA shall ap­ply.

Art. 26 Risk management and internal control  

(Art. 9 and 21 Fin­IA)

1Port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees shall set out guidelines for the ba­sic prin­ciples of risk man­age­ment and define their risk tol­er­ance.

2Risk man­age­ment and in­tern­al con­trol are not re­quired to be in­de­pend­ent of rev­en­ue-based activ­it­ies if the port­fo­lio man­ager or trust­ee:

a.
is a com­pany which has five or few­er full-time po­s­i­tions or an­nu­al gross earn­ings of less than CHF 2 mil­lion; and
b.
ad­heres to a non-high-risk busi­ness mod­el.

3The thresholds in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 let­ter a must be achieved in two of three past busi­ness years or be provided for in the busi­ness plan­ning.

4If the port­fo­lio man­ager or trust­ee has a body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 23 para­graph 3 and gen­er­ates an­nu­al gross earn­ings of more than CHF 10 mil­lion, FINMA may also re­quire that in­tern­al aud­it­ors who are in­de­pend­ent of man­age­ment be ap­poin­ted where the nature and scope of activ­ity so dic­tate.

Art. 27 Minimum capital  

(Art. 22 para. 1 Fin­IA)

1The min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ments of com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares and of part­ner­ships lim­ited by shares must be met with share and par­ti­cip­a­tion cap­it­al, those of lim­ited li­ab­il­ity com­pan­ies must be met with nom­in­al cap­it­al, and those of co­oper­at­ives must be met with co­oper­at­ive cap­it­al.

2The min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ments of part­ner­ships and sole pro­pri­et­or­ships must be met with:

a.
the cap­it­al ac­counts;
b.
the lim­ited part­ner­ship con­tri­bu­tions;
c.
the as­sets of part­ners with un­lim­ited li­ab­il­ity.

3The cap­it­al ac­counts and as­sets of part­ners with un­lim­ited li­ab­il­ity may only be coun­ted to­wards the min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ment if a de­clar­a­tion is provided to the ef­fect that:

a.
in the event of li­quid­a­tion, bank­ruptcy or pro­bate pro­ceed­ings, such ac­counts and as­sets shall be sub­or­din­ate to the claims of all oth­er cred­it­ors; and
b.
the port­fo­lio man­ager or trust­ee un­der­takes:
1.
neither to net such ac­counts and as­sets with its own claims nor to se­cure them with its own as­sets,
2.
without the pri­or con­sent of the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion, not to re­duce any of the cap­it­al com­pon­ents as defined in para­graph 2 let­ters a and c to the ex­tent that the min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ment is no longer met.

4The de­clar­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 is ir­re­voc­able. It must be made in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text and filed with the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion.

5FINMA may per­mit part­ner­ships and sole pro­pri­et­or­ships to provide, in­stead of min­im­um cap­it­al, col­lat­er­al in the form of a bank guar­an­tee or a cash de­pos­it in a blocked ac­count with a bank, said col­lat­er­al be­ing equi­val­ent to the min­im­um cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 22 para­graph 1 Fin­IA.

Art. 28 Level of capital adequacy  

(Art. 23 Fin­IA)

1The level of cap­it­al ad­equacy stip­u­lated in Art­icle 23 Fin­IA must be main­tained at all times.

2The fol­low­ing are fixed costs in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 23 para­graph 2 Fin­IA:

a.
per­son­nel ex­penses;
b.
op­er­at­ing busi­ness ex­penses;
c.
de­pre­ci­ation of in­vest­ment as­sets;
d.
ex­penses for valu­ation ad­just­ments, pro­vi­sions and losses.

3The por­tion of per­son­nel ex­penses which is ex­clus­ively de­pend­ent on the busi­ness res­ult or in re­la­tion to which no leg­al en­ti­tle­ment ex­ists is to be de­duc­ted from per­son­nel ex­penses.

4Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may ease re­quire­ments.

Art. 29 Qualifying capital  

(Art. 23 Fin­IA)

1Leg­al en­tit­ies may count the fol­low­ing as qual­i­fy­ing cap­it­al:

a.
the paid-up share and par­ti­cip­a­tion cap­it­al in the case of a com­pany lim­ited by shares and a part­ner­ship lim­ited by shares, the nom­in­al cap­it­al in the case of a lim­ited li­ab­il­ity com­pany and the co­oper­at­ive cap­it­al in the case of a co­oper­at­ive;
b.
the gen­er­al stat­utory and oth­er re­serves;
c.
re­tained earn­ings;
d.
the net profit for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year after de­duc­tion of the es­tim­ated share in the profit dis­tri­bu­tion, provided an audit re­view or an audit pur­su­ant to the CO16 of the in­ter­im or an­nu­al ac­counts con­firms the as­sur­ances stip­u­lated;
e.
hid­den re­serves, provided they are as­signed to a sep­ar­ate ac­count and des­ig­nated as cap­it­al and their qual­i­fi­ab­il­ity as such is con­firmed on the basis of the audit in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 62 Fin­IA.

2Part­ner­ships and sole pro­pri­et­or­ships may count the fol­low­ing as qual­i­fy­ing cap­it­al:

a.
the cap­it­al ac­counts and as­sets of part­ners with un­lim­ited li­ab­il­ity if the con­di­tions un­der Art­icle 27 para­graph 3 are sat­is­fied;
b.
the lim­ited part­ner­ship con­tri­bu­tion.

3Port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees may also count as qual­i­fy­ing cap­it­al any loans gran­ted to them, in­clud­ing bonds with a ma­tur­ity of at least five years, if a de­clar­a­tion is provided to the ef­fect that:

a.
in the event of li­quid­a­tion, bank­ruptcy or pro­bate pro­ceed­ings, such loans shall be sub­or­din­ate to the claims of all oth­er cred­it­ors; and
b.
the port­fo­lio man­ager or trust­ee un­der­takes neither to net such loans with its own claims nor to se­cure them with its own as­sets.

4The de­clar­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 is ir­re­voc­able. It must be made in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text and filed with the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion.

Art. 30 Deductions applied when calculating the level of capital adequacy  

(Art. 23 Fin­IA)

The fol­low­ing shall be de­duc­ted when cal­cu­lat­ing the level of cap­it­al ad­equacy:

a.
the loss car­ried for­ward and the loss for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year;
b.
any un­se­cured valu­ation ad­just­ments and pro­vi­sions for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year;
c.
in the case of loans in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 29 para­graph 3: 20% of the ori­gin­al nom­in­al amount per year for the last five years pri­or to re­pay­ment;
d.
in­tan­gible as­sets (in­clud­ing start-up and or­gan­isa­tion­al costs as well as good­will) with the ex­cep­tion of soft­ware;
e.
in the case of a com­pany lim­ited by shares and a part­ner­ship lim­ited by shares: the shares which they hold in the com­pany at their own risk;
f.
in the case of a lim­ited li­ab­il­ity com­pany: the cap­it­al con­tri­bu­tion which it holds in the com­pany at its own risk;
g.
the car­ry­ing amount of par­ti­cip­a­tions.
Art. 31 Collateral  

(Art. 22 para. 2 and 23 Fin­IA)

1Col­lat­er­al is deemed to be ap­pro­pri­ate if the ap­plic­able pro­vi­sions on cap­it­al are com­plied with.

2In­so­far as it cov­ers the risks en­tailed by the busi­ness mod­el, pro­fes­sion­al in­dem­nity in­sur­ance may be coun­ted 50% to­wards qual­i­fy­ing cap­it­al.

3FINMA shall reg­u­late the de­tails of pro­fes­sion­al li­ab­il­ity in­sur­ance, in par­tic­u­lar with re­gard to term, no­tice peri­od, the amount of in­sur­ance cov­er, the pro­fes­sion­al li­ab­il­ity risks to be covered and the re­port­ing du­ties.

Art. 32 Accounting  

(Art. 9, 22 and 23 Fin­IA)

1Port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees are sub­ject to the ac­count­ing reg­u­la­tions of the CO17. Art­icle 957 para­graphs 2 and 3 CO are not ap­plic­able.

2Where port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees are sub­ject to spe­cif­ic, more strin­gent ac­count­ing stand­ards, such stand­ards take pre­ced­ence.

Art. 33 Internal documentation  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

In­tern­al doc­u­ment­a­tion of the port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees must al­low the audit firm, the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion and FINMA to form a re­li­able pic­ture of the busi­ness activ­it­ies.

Section 2 Managers of Collective Assets

Art. 34 Calculation of thresholds  

(Art. 24 para. 1 and 2 Fin­IA)

1The fol­low­ing ap­ply to cal­cu­la­tion of the thresholds for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes man­aged by the man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 para­graph 2 let­ter a Fin­IA:

a.
As­sets man­aged in­clude all Swiss and for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes man­aged by the same man­ager ir­re­spect­ive of wheth­er it man­ages them dir­ectly or via del­eg­a­tion or via a com­pany with which it is con­nec­ted through:
1.
a single man­age­ment;
2.
a re­la­tion­ship of com­mon con­trol; or
3.
a sig­ni­fic­ant dir­ect or in­dir­ect par­ti­cip­a­tion.
b.
The value of the as­sets is cal­cu­lated on at least a quarterly basis, un­der due con­sid­er­a­tion of any lever­age ef­fect.
c.
For col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes that were es­tab­lished more than 12 months pre­vi­ously, the threshold may be cal­cu­lated on the basis of the av­er­age value of the as­sets over the last four quar­ters.
d.
The value of the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes pur­su­ant to Art­icle 24 para­graph 2 let­ter a item 2 Fin­IA is cal­cu­lated on the basis of the cap­it­al com­mit­ments or the nom­in­al value of the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes con­cerned, provided the price of the in­vest­ments un­der­ly­ing such schemes is not ob­tained through trad­ing on a reg­u­lated mar­ket.

2The fol­low­ing ap­ply to cal­cu­la­tion of the thresholds for the as­sets of oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion schemes man­aged by the man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 24 para­graph 2 let­ter b Fin­IA:

a.
As­sets of the fol­low­ing oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion schemes shall be in­cluded:
1.
re­gistered and non-re­gistered oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion schemes;
2.
em­ploy­er-sponsored wel­fare funds;
3.
in­vest­ment found­a­tions;
4.
pil­lar 3a found­a­tions;
5.
ves­ted be­ne­fits found­a­tions.
b.
The man­ager shall cal­cu­late on a quarterly basis wheth­er the threshold of CHF 100 mil­lion has been reached.
c.
The oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme shall cal­cu­late an­nu­ally wheth­er the threshold of 20% has been reached in the man­dat­ory seg­ment. It shall in­form the man­ager of the value cal­cu­lated.

3Threshold val­ues in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 para­graph 2 let­ters a and b Fin­IA shall not be ad­ded to­geth­er.

4FINMA reg­u­lates the de­tails for cal­cu­lat­ing the thresholds and the lever­age ef­fect in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1 and 2.

Art. 35 Procedure in the event that thresholds are exceeded  

(Art. 24 para. 1 and 2 Fin­IA)

1If a man­ager ex­ceeds a threshold in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 para­graph 2 Fin­IA, it shall no­ti­fy FINMA to that ef­fect with­in 10 days.

2The man­ager must sub­mit to the lat­ter an ap­plic­a­tion for au­thor­isa­tion pur­su­ant to Art­icle 24 para­graph 1 Fin­IA with­in 90 days if, dur­ing this peri­od, they have not made changes to their busi­ness mod­el which make a re­newed ex­ceed­ing of the thresholds ap­pear un­likely.

3If changes are made to the busi­ness mod­el with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 2 dur­ing an on­go­ing au­thor­isa­tion pro­ced­ure, the au­thor­isa­tion pro­ced­ure will be rendered un­ne­ces­sary.

Art. 36 Authorisation as manager of collective assets  

(Art. 24 para. 3 Fin­IA)

FINMA shall grant a port­fo­lio man­ager in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 para­graph 2 Fin­IA au­thor­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 para­graph 3 Fin­IA if:

a.
it has its re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land;
b.
the con­di­tions of au­thor­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 para­graph 1 Fin­IA are sat­is­fied; and
c.
Swiss or ap­plic­able for­eign law provides that the man­age­ment of col­lect­ive as­sets may only be del­eg­ated to a su­per­vised man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets.
Art. 37 Organisation  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

1Two au­thor­ised sig­nat­or­ies must sign jointly.

2Man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets must be able to be rep­res­en­ted by a per­son who has their place of res­id­ence in Switzer­land. This per­son must be a mem­ber of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment or of the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol.

3The body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment must com­prise at least two per­sons.

4Man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets must ap­point a spe­cial body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol.

5Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may al­low de­par­tures from these re­quire­ments; it may grant ex­emp­tions in par­tic­u­lar from the duty in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 4 where the nature and scope of activ­ity so dic­tate, in par­tic­u­lar if the com­pany has ten or few­er full-time po­s­i­tions or an­nu­al gross earn­ings of less than CHF 5 mil­lion.

Art. 38 Body responsible for governance, supervision and control  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

1The ma­jor­ity of the mem­bers of the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol may not be mem­bers of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment.

2The chair may not at the same time hold the of­fice of chair of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment.

3At least one third of mem­bers must be in­de­pend­ent of the per­sons who hold a qual­i­fied par­ti­cip­a­tion in the man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets and in com­pan­ies of the same con­glom­er­ate or group. Man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets which are part of a fin­an­cial group sub­ject to con­sol­id­ated su­per­vi­sion by FINMA are ex­emp­ted.

4Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may al­low de­par­tures from these re­quire­ments.

Art. 39 Tasks  

(Art. 26 Fin­IA)

1The re­ceipt and trans­mis­sion of or­ders in the name of and on be­half of cli­ents in re­la­tion to fin­an­cial in­stru­ments is deemed to be an ad­min­is­trat­ive activ­ity in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 26 para­graph 3 Fin­IA which a man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets can per­form with­in the scope of its tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 26 Fin­IA. Art­icle 35 Fin­IA re­mains re­served.

2A man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets which also of­fers per­son­al­ised as­set man­age­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 4 in con­junc­tion with Art­icle 17 para­graph 1 Fin­IA may not in­vest the in­vestor's as­sets, wheth­er in full or in part, in units of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes that it man­ages, un­less the cli­ent has giv­en their gen­er­al con­sent be­fore­hand.

3If the ren­der­ing of ad­di­tion­al ser­vices in­creases the risks to which man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets are ex­posed, this must be taken in­to ac­count with­in the scope of su­per­vi­sion (Art­icles 61 and 63 Fin­IA).

Art. 40 Delegation of tasks  

(Art. 14 and 27 Fin­IA)

1Wheth­er a del­eg­a­tion of in­vest­ment de­cisions is deemed to have the ne­ces­sary au­thor­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 14 para­graph 1 Fin­IA is de­term­ined in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 Fin­IA. For­eign man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets must be sub­ject to au­thor­isa­tion and su­per­vi­sion which is at least equi­val­ent.

2Where for­eign law re­quires an agree­ment on co­oper­a­tion and the ex­change of in­form­a­tion with the for­eign su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies, in­vest­ment de­cisions may only be del­eg­ated to man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets abroad if such an agree­ment is in place between FINMA and the for­eign su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies rel­ev­ant for the re­spect­ive in­vest­ment de­cisions.

Art. 41 Risk management and internal control  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

1Man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets must have an ap­pro­pri­ately defined risk man­age­ment sys­tem in place as well as an ef­fect­ive in­tern­al con­trol struc­ture to en­sure in par­tic­u­lar com­pli­ance with leg­al and in­tern­al pro­vi­sions.

2They shall set out guidelines for the ba­sic prin­ciples of risk man­age­ment and define their risk tol­er­ance.

3They will keep the func­tions of risk man­age­ment and com­pli­ance func­tion­ally and hier­arch­ic­ally sep­ar­ate from the op­er­a­tion­al busi­ness units, in par­tic­u­lar from the func­tion of in­vest­ment de­cisions (port­fo­lio man­age­ment).

4The body re­spons­ible for the gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol of the man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets is charged with es­tab­lish­ing, se­cur­ing and mon­it­or­ing the in­tern­al con­trol sys­tem (ICS). This body also defines risk tol­er­ance.

5The body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment im­ple­ments the cor­res­pond­ing re­quire­ments stip­u­lated by the body for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol, it de­vel­ops suit­able guidelines, pro­ced­ures and pro­cesses, and re­ports peri­od­ic­ally to the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol.

6Para­graphs 4 and 5 do not ap­ply to man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets which are gran­ted an ex­emp­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 37 para­graph 5.

7If a body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol has been ap­poin­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 37 para­graph 4, FINMA may also re­quire that in­tern­al aud­it­ors who are in­de­pend­ent of man­age­ment be ap­poin­ted where the nature and scope of activ­ity so dic­tate.

8Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may de­part from these re­quire­ments.

9FINMA shall reg­u­late the de­tails.

Art. 42 Minimum capital  

(Art. 28 para. 1 and 3 Fin­IA)

1The min­im­um cap­it­al of man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets must amount to at least CHF 200,000 and be paid up in full. This amount must be main­tained at all times.

2The min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ments of com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares and of part­ner­ships lim­ited by shares must be met with share and par­ti­cip­a­tion cap­it­al, those of lim­ited li­ab­il­ity com­pan­ies must be met with nom­in­al cap­it­al.

3The min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ments of part­ner­ships must be met with:

a.
the cap­it­al ac­counts;
b.
the lim­ited part­ner­ship con­tri­bu­tions;
c.
the as­sets of part­ners with un­lim­ited li­ab­il­ity.

4The cap­it­al ac­counts and as­sets of part­ners with un­lim­ited li­ab­il­ity may only be coun­ted to­wards the min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ment if a de­clar­a­tion is provided to the ef­fect that:

a.
in the event of li­quid­a­tion, bank­ruptcy or pro­bate pro­ceed­ings, such ac­counts and as­sets shall be sub­or­din­ate to the claims of all oth­er cred­it­ors; and
b.
the man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets un­der­takes:
1.
neither to net such ac­counts and as­sets with its own claims nor to se­cure them with its own as­sets,
2.
without the pri­or con­sent of the audit firm, not to re­duce any of the cap­it­al com­pon­ents as defined in para­graph 3 let­ters a and c to the ex­tent that the min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ment is no longer met.

5The de­clar­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 4 is ir­re­voc­able. It must be made in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text and filed with the audit firm.

6If a man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets for for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes con­ducts the fund busi­ness with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 26 para­graph 2 Fin­IA, FINMA can stip­u­late a high­er min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ment.

Art. 43 Collateral  

(Art. 28 para. 2 and 3 Fin­IA)

1FINMA may per­mit part­ner­ships to provide, in­stead of min­im­um cap­it­al, col­lat­er­al in the form of a bank guar­an­tee or a cash de­pos­it in a blocked ac­count with a bank, said col­lat­er­al be­ing equi­val­ent to the min­im­um cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 42.

2Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may stip­u­late a dif­fer­ent min­im­um amount.

Art. 44 Level of capital adequacy  

(Art. 29 Fin­IA)

1The cap­it­al stip­u­lated in Art­icle 29 Fin­IA must be main­tained at all times and amount to at least one quarter of the fixed costs re­por­ted in the most re­cent an­nu­al ac­counts and no more than CHF 20 mil­lion, in­clud­ing cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2.

2Man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets must:

a.
hold cap­it­al amount­ing to 0.01% of the total col­lect­ive as­sets man­aged by the man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets; or
b.
take out pro­fes­sion­al li­ab­il­ity in­sur­ance.
3FINMA shall reg­u­late the de­tails of pro­fes­sion­al li­ab­il­ity in­sur­ance, in par­tic­u­lar with re­gard to term, no­tice peri­od, the amount of in­sur­ance cov­er, the pro­fes­sion­al li­ab­il­ity risks to be covered and the re­port­ing du­ties.

4Fixed costs in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 are:

a.
per­son­nel ex­penses;
b.
op­er­at­ing busi­ness ex­penses;
c.
de­pre­ci­ation of in­vest­ment as­sets;
d.
ex­penses for valu­ation ad­just­ments, pro­vi­sions and losses.

5The por­tion of per­son­nel ex­penses which is ex­clus­ively de­pend­ent on the busi­ness res­ult or in re­la­tion to which no leg­al en­ti­tle­ment ex­ists is to be de­duc­ted from per­son­nel ex­penses.

6Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may ease re­quire­ments.

Art. 45 Qualifying capital  

(Art. 29 Fin­IA)

1Leg­al en­tit­ies may count the fol­low­ing as qual­i­fy­ing cap­it­al:

a.
the paid-up share and par­ti­cip­a­tion cap­it­al in the case of a com­pany lim­ited by shares and a part­ner­ship lim­ited by shares, and the nom­in­al cap­it­al in the case of a lim­ited li­ab­il­ity com­pany;
b.
the gen­er­al stat­utory and oth­er re­serves;
c.
re­tained earn­ings;
d.
the net profit for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year after de­duc­tion of the es­tim­ated share in the profit dis­tri­bu­tion, provided an audit re­view or an audit pur­su­ant to the CO18 of the in­ter­im or an­nu­al ac­counts con­firms the as­sur­ances stip­u­lated;
e.
hid­den re­serves, provided they are as­signed to a sep­ar­ate ac­count and des­ig­nated as own cap­it­al and their qual­i­fi­ab­il­ity as such is con­firmed on the basis of the audit in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 63 Fin­IA.

2Part­ner­ships may count the fol­low­ing as qual­i­fy­ing cap­it­al:

a.
the cap­it­al ac­counts and as­sets of part­ners with un­lim­ited li­ab­il­ity if the con­di­tions un­der Art­icle 42 para­graph 4 are sat­is­fied;
b.
the lim­ited part­ner­ship con­tri­bu­tion.

3Man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets may also count as qual­i­fy­ing cap­it­al any loans gran­ted to them, in­clud­ing bonds with a ma­tur­ity of at least five years, if a de­clar­a­tion is provided to the ef­fect that:

a.
in the event of li­quid­a­tion, bank­ruptcy or pro­bate pro­ceed­ings, such loans shall be sub­or­din­ate to the claims of all oth­er cred­it­ors; and
b.
they have un­der­taken neither to net such loans with their own claims nor to se­cure them with their own as­sets.

4The de­clar­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 is ir­re­voc­able. It must be made in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text and filed with the audit firm.

5Own cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1 and 2 must amount to at least 50% of total cap­it­al re­quired.

Art. 46 Deductions applied when calculating the level of capital adequacy  

(Art. 29 Fin­IA)

The fol­low­ing shall be de­duc­ted when cal­cu­lat­ing the level of cap­it­al ad­equacy:

a.
the loss car­ried for­ward and the loss for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year;
b.
any un­se­cured valu­ation ad­just­ments and pro­vi­sions for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year;
c.
in the case of loans in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 45 para­graph 3: 20% of the ori­gin­al nom­in­al amount per year for the last five years pri­or to re­pay­ment;
d.
in­tan­gible as­sets (in­clud­ing start-up and or­gan­isa­tion­al costs as well as good­will) with the ex­cep­tion of soft­ware;
e.
in the case of a com­pany lim­ited by shares and of a part­ner­ship lim­ited by shares: the shares which they hold in the com­pany at their own risk;
f.
in the case of a lim­ited li­ab­il­ity com­pany: the cap­it­al con­tri­bu­tion which it holds in the com­pany at its own risk;
g.
the car­ry­ing amount of par­ti­cip­a­tions.
Art. 47 Accounting and annual report  

(Art. 9, 28 and 29 Fin­IA)

1Man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets are sub­ject to the ac­count­ing reg­u­la­tions of the CO19. Where man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets are sub­ject to spe­cif­ic, more strin­gent ac­count­ing stand­ards, such reg­u­la­tions take pre­ced­ence.

2The man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets shall sub­mit to FINMA the an­nu­al re­port and the full re­port for the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol with­in 30 days of re­ceiv­ing ap­prov­al from the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment. The man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets shall ap­pend to the an­nu­al re­port a list of the pre­scribed and avail­able cap­it­al as at the bal­ance sheet date.

3Para­graph 2 does not ap­ply to man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets which are gran­ted an ex­emp­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 37 para­graph 5.

Art. 48 Internal documentation  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

In­tern­al doc­u­ment­a­tion of the man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets must al­low the audit firm and FINMA to form a re­li­able pic­ture of the busi­ness activ­it­ies.

Section 3 Fund Management Companies

Art. 49 Independent management of investment funds  

(Art. 32 Fin­IA)

1The in­de­pend­ent man­age­ment of in­vest­ment funds in its own name and for the ac­count of in­vestors by the fund man­age­ment com­pany com­prises in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
de­cisions on the is­sue of units, on in­vest­ments and on their valu­ation;
b.
cal­cu­la­tion of the net as­set value;
c.
de­term­in­a­tion of the is­sue and re­demp­tion prices as well as dis­tri­bu­tions of profit;
d.
as­ser­tion of all rights per­tain­ing to the in­vest­ment fund.

2In­sti­tu­tions which en­gage solely in ad­min­is­tra­tion activ­it­ies for ex­tern­ally man­aged SICAVs pur­su­ant to CISA20 man­age in­vest­ment funds in­de­pend­ently and as fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies re­quire au­thor­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 5 para­graph 1 in con­junc­tion with Art­icle 32 Fin­IA.

Art. 50 Head office in Switzerland  

(Art. 33 para. 1 Fin­IA)

The head of­fice of the fund man­age­ment com­pany is deemed to be in Switzer­land if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met:

a.
The non-trans­fer­able and in­ali­en­able du­ties of the board of dir­ect­ors in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 716a CO21 are per­formed in Switzer­land.
b.
For each of the in­vest­ment funds man­aged by the fund man­age­ment com­pany, in min­im­um the fol­low­ing tasks are per­formed in Switzer­land:
1.
de­cisions on the is­sue of units;
2.
de­cisions on in­vest­ment policy and on the valu­ation of in­vest­ments;
3.
valu­ation of in­vest­ments;
4.
de­term­in­a­tion of is­sue and re­demp­tion prices;
5.
de­term­in­a­tion of dis­tri­bu­tions of profit;
6.
de­term­in­a­tion of the con­tent of the pro­spect­us and the key in­form­a­tion doc­u­ment, of the an­nu­al or the semi-an­nu­al re­port, as well as of fur­ther pub­lic­a­tions in­ten­ded for in­vestors;
7.
keep­ing of ac­counts.
Art. 51 Organisation  

(Art. 9 and 33 Fin­IA)

1Fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies shall as a rule have at least three full-time po­s­i­tions with au­thor­ity to sign.

2Two au­thor­ised sig­nat­or­ies must sign jointly.

3The body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment must com­prise at least two per­sons.

4Fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies must ap­point a spe­cial body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol.

5Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may al­low re­lax­a­tions of these re­quire­ments or it may im­pose more strin­gent re­quire­ments.

Art. 52 Body responsible for governance, supervision and control  

(Art. 9 and 33 Fin­IA)

1The body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol must com­prise at least three mem­bers.

2The ma­jor­ity of the mem­bers of this body may not also be mem­bers of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment.

3The chair may not at the same time hold the of­fice of chair of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment.

4At least one third of mem­bers must be in­de­pend­ent of the per­sons who hold a qual­i­fied par­ti­cip­a­tion in the fund man­age­ment com­pany and in com­pan­ies of the same group. Fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies which are part of a fin­an­cial group sub­ject to con­sol­id­ated su­per­vi­sion by FINMA are ex­emp­ted.

5Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may al­low re­lax­a­tions of these re­quire­ments or it may im­pose more strin­gent re­quire­ments.

Art. 53 Independence  

(Art. 33 para. 3 Fin­IA)

1Sim­ul­tan­eous mem­ber­ship of the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol of the fund man­age­ment com­pany and that of the cus­todi­an bank is per­mit­ted.

2Sim­ul­tan­eous mem­ber­ship of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment of the fund man­age­ment com­pany and that of the cus­todi­an bank is not per­mit­ted.

3The ma­jor­ity of the mem­bers of the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol of the fund man­age­ment com­pany must be in­de­pend­ent of the per­sons at the cus­todi­an bank who are tasked with the du­ties in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 73 CISA22. Per­sons at the cus­todi­an bank at man­age­ment level tasked with du­ties in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 73 CISA are not deemed to be in­de­pend­ent.

4None of the au­thor­ised sig­nat­or­ies of the fund man­age­ment com­pany may at the same time be re­spons­ible at the cus­todi­an bank for du­ties in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 73 CISA.

Art. 54 Conduct of fund business  

(Art. 33 para. 4 Fin­IA)

1In ad­di­tion to the tasks spe­cified in Art­icles 32 and 33 para­graph 4 Fin­IA as well as in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 49, fund busi­ness spe­cific­ally en­tails:

a.
the rep­res­ent­a­tion of for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes;
b.
the ac­quis­i­tion of par­ti­cip­a­tions in com­pan­ies whose main pur­pose is the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme busi­ness;
c.
the keep­ing of unit ac­counts.

2The fund man­age­ment com­pany may only per­form these activ­it­ies and any fur­ther ser­vices in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 34 Fin­IA if its art­icles of as­so­ci­ation so provide.

3Art­icle 26 para­graph 2 Fin­IA ap­plies by ana­logy to the con­duct of fund busi­ness for for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes.

Art. 55 Tasks  

(Art. 34 Fin­IA)

1Fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies shall keep their own as­sets sep­ar­ate from man­aged as­sets at all times.

2They shall en­sure that the valu­ation of in­vest­ments, port­fo­lio man­age­ment and trad­ing and set­tle­ment are kept sep­ar­ate both func­tion­ally and in terms of per­son­nel.

3A fund man­age­ment com­pany which also of­fers per­son­al­ised as­set man­age­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 3 in con­junc­tion with Art­icle 17 para­graph 1 Fin­IA may not in­vest the in­vestor's as­sets, wheth­er in full or in part, in units of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes that it man­ages, un­less the cli­ent has giv­en their gen­er­al con­sent be­fore­hand.

4Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may al­low ex­emp­tions or it may or­der the sep­ar­a­tion of fur­ther func­tions.

Art. 56 Delegation of tasks  

(Art. 14 and 35 Fin­IA)

1Wheth­er a del­eg­a­tion of in­vest­ment de­cisions is deemed to have the ne­ces­sary au­thor­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 14 para­graph 1 Fin­IA is de­term­ined in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 Fin­IA. For­eign man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets must be sub­ject to au­thor­isa­tion and su­per­vi­sion which is at least equi­val­ent.

2Where for­eign law re­quires an agree­ment on co­oper­a­tion and the ex­change of in­form­a­tion with the for­eign su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies, in­vest­ment de­cisions may only be del­eg­ated to man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets abroad if such an agree­ment is in place between FINMA and the for­eign su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies rel­ev­ant for the re­spect­ive in­vest­ment de­cisions.

Art. 57 Risk management and internal control  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

1Fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies must have an ap­pro­pri­ately defined risk man­age­ment sys­tem in place as well as an ef­fect­ive in­tern­al con­trol struc­ture to en­sure in par­tic­u­lar com­pli­ance with leg­al and in­tern­al pro­vi­sions.

2They shall set out guidelines for the ba­sic prin­ciples of risk man­age­ment and define their risk tol­er­ance.

3They will keep the func­tions of risk man­age­ment and com­pli­ance func­tion­ally and hier­arch­ic­ally sep­ar­ate from the op­er­a­tion­al busi­ness units, in par­tic­u­lar from port­fo­lio man­age­ment.

4The body re­spons­ible for the gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol of the fund man­age­ment com­pany is charged with es­tab­lish­ing, se­cur­ing and mon­it­or­ing the ICS. This body also defines risk tol­er­ance.

5The body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment im­ple­ments the cor­res­pond­ing re­quire­ments stip­u­lated by the body for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol, it de­vel­ops suit­able guidelines, pro­ced­ures and pro­cesses, and re­ports at ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­vals to the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol.

6Where the nature and scope of activ­ity so jus­ti­fy, FINMA may re­quire the ap­point­ment of in­tern­al aud­it­ors who are in­de­pend­ent of man­age­ment.

7Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, it may de­part from these re­quire­ments.

8It shall reg­u­late the de­tails.

Art. 58 Minimum capital  

(Art. 36 Fin­IA)

The min­im­um cap­it­al of fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies must amount to at least CHF 1 mil­lion and be paid up in full. This amount must be main­tained at all times.

Art. 59 Level of capital adequacy  

(Art. 37 Fin­IA)

1The level of cap­it­al ad­equacy stip­u­lated in Art­icle 37 Fin­IA must be main­tained at all times. They must amount to no more than CHF 20 mil­lion, in­clud­ing the cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 5.

2They will be cal­cu­lated as fol­lows in per­cent­ages of the total as­sets of the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes man­aged by the fund man­age­ment com­pany:

a.
1% for that por­tion of the total as­sets not ex­ceed­ing CHF 50 mil­lion;
b.
¾% for that por­tion of the total as­sets ex­ceed­ing CHF 50 mil­lion, but not ex­ceed­ing CHF 100 mil­lion;
c.
½% for that por­tion of the total as­sets ex­ceed­ing CHF 100 mil­lion, but not ex­ceed­ing CHF 150 mil­lion;
d.
¼% for that por­tion of the total as­sets ex­ceed­ing CHF 150 mil­lion, but not ex­ceed­ing CHF 250 mil­lion;
e.
⅛% for that por­tion of the total as­sets ex­ceed­ing CHF 250 mil­lion.

3Where the fund man­age­ment com­pany renders fur­ther ser­vices in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 34 Fin­IA, the op­er­a­tion­al risks arising from such trans­ac­tions are cal­cu­lated us­ing the ba­sic in­dic­at­or ap­proach as defined in Art­icle 92 of the Cap­it­al Ad­equacy Or­din­ance of 1 June 201223 (CAO).

4If the fund man­age­ment com­pany is en­trus­ted with the ad­min­is­tra­tion and port­fo­lio man­age­ment of the as­sets of a SICAV, its total as­sets must be in­cluded in the cal­cu­la­tion of cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2.

5If the fund man­age­ment com­pany is solely en­trus­ted with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of a SICAV, it must hold ad­di­tion­al cap­it­al of 0.01% of the total as­sets of the SICAV.

Art. 60 Qualifying capital  

(Art. 37 Fin­IA)

1Fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies may count the fol­low­ing as qual­i­fy­ing cap­it­al:

a.
the paid-up share and par­ti­cip­a­tion cap­it­al;
b.
the gen­er­al stat­utory and oth­er re­serves;
c.
re­tained earn­ings;
d.
the net profit for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year after de­duc­tion of the es­tim­ated profit dis­tri­bu­tion, provided an audit re­view of the in­ter­im ac­counts in­clud­ing a com­plete in­come state­ment is avail­able;
e.
hid­den re­serves, provided they are as­signed to a sep­ar­ate ac­count and des­ig­nated as cap­it­al and their qual­i­fi­ab­il­ity as such is con­firmed on the basis of the audit in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 63 Fin­IA.

2Fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies may also count as qual­i­fy­ing cap­it­al any loans gran­ted to them, in­clud­ing bonds with a ma­tur­ity of at least five years, if a de­clar­a­tion is provided to the ef­fect that:

a.
in the event of li­quid­a­tion, bank­ruptcy or pro­bate pro­ceed­ings, such loans shall be sub­or­din­ate to the claims of all oth­er cred­it­ors; and
b.
the fund man­age­ment com­pany un­der­takes neither to net such loans with its own claims nor to se­cure them with its own as­sets.

3The de­clar­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 is ir­re­voc­able. It must be made in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text and filed with the audit firm.

4Cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 must amount to at least 50% of total cap­it­al re­quired.

Art. 61 Deductions applied when calculating the level of capital adequacy  

(Art. 37 Fin­IA)

The fol­low­ing shall be de­duc­ted when cal­cu­lat­ing the level of cap­it­al ad­equacy:

a.
the loss car­ried for­ward and the loss for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year;
b.
the un­se­cured valu­ation ad­just­ments and pro­vi­sions for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year;
c.
in the case of loans in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 60 para­graph 2: 20% of the ori­gin­al nom­in­al amount per year for the last five years pri­or to re­pay­ment;
d.
in­tan­gible as­sets (in­clud­ing start-up and or­gan­isa­tion­al costs as well as good­will) with the ex­cep­tion of soft­ware;
e.
own shares held by the fund man­age­ment com­pany at its own risk;
g.
the car­ry­ing amount of par­ti­cip­a­tions.
Art. 62 Accounting and annual report  

(Art. 9, 33, 36 und 37 Fin­IA)

1Fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies are sub­ject to the ac­count­ing reg­u­la­tions of the CO24. Where fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies are sub­ject to spe­cif­ic, more strin­gent ac­count­ing stand­ards, such reg­u­la­tions take pre­ced­ence.

2The fund man­age­ment com­pany shall sub­mit to FINMA the an­nu­al re­port and the full re­port for the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol with­in 30 days of re­ceiv­ing ap­prov­al from the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment. The fund man­age­ment com­pany shall ap­pend to the an­nu­al re­port a list of the pre­scribed and avail­able cap­it­al as at the bal­ance sheet date.

Art. 63 Internal documentation  

(Art. 9 and 33 Fin­IA)

In­tern­al doc­u­ment­a­tion of the fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies must al­low the audit firm and FINMA to form a re­li­able pic­ture of the busi­ness activ­it­ies.

Art. 64 Change of fund management company  

(Art. 39 Fin­IA)

Art­icle 27 CISA25 und Art­icle 41 of the Col­lect­ive In­vest­ment Schemes Or­din­ance of 22 Novem­ber 200626 ap­ply by ana­logy to a change of fund man­age­ment com­pany.

Section 4 Securities Firms

Art. 65 Commerciality  

(Art. 3 and 41 Fin­IA)

1Se­cur­it­ies firms with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 41 let­ter a Fin­IA are deemed to pur­sue their activ­it­ies on a com­mer­cial basis if they dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly man­age ac­counts or hold se­cur­it­ies in safe­keep­ing for more than 20 cli­ents.

2The fol­low­ing are not deemed to be cli­ents with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 41 let­ter a Fin­IA:

a.
do­mest­ic and for­eign banks and se­cur­it­ies firms or oth­er com­pan­ies un­der state su­per­vi­sion;
b.
share­hold­ers or part­ners hold­ing a qual­i­fy­ing par­ti­cip­a­tion and per­sons with whom they have busi­ness or fam­ily ties;
c.
in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors with pro­fes­sion­al treas­ury op­er­a­tions.

3Activ­it­ies for schemes and per­sons in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2 para­graph 2 let­ters a, b, d and e Fin­IA are not factored in­to the as­sess­ment of com­mer­ci­al­ity.

4The prop­er func­tion­ing of the fin­an­cial mar­ket is deemed po­ten­tially jeop­ard­ised with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 41 let­ter b item 1 Fin­IA if the total volume of ex­ecuted trades in se­cur­it­ies ex­ceeds CHF 5 bil­lion per cal­en­dar year in Switzer­land.

5Any party ad­mit­ted as a dir­ect par­ti­cipant of a trad­ing ven­ue is deemed to be op­er­at­ing as a mem­ber of a trad­ing ven­ue with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 41 let­ter b item 2 Fin­IA.

6A se­cur­it­ies firm shall pub­licly quote prices with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 41 let­ter c Fin­IA if the prices ac­cord­ing to Art­icle 3 let­ters g and h FinSA27 are part of an of­fer to the pub­lic. Of­fers to schemes and per­sons in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 2 and 3 are not deemed pub­lic.

7Fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies are not deemed to be se­cur­it­ies firms.

Art. 66 Organisation  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

1Se­cur­it­ies firms must be able to be rep­res­en­ted by a per­son who has their place of res­id­ence in Switzer­land. This per­son must be a mem­ber of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment or of the body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol.

2The body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment must com­prise at least two per­sons.

3Firms trad­ing for the ac­count of cli­ents and firms act­ing as mar­ket makers with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 41 let­ters a and c Fin­IA must ap­point a spe­cial body re­spons­ible for gov­ernance, su­per­vi­sion and con­trol. Its mem­bers may not be mem­bers of the body re­spons­ible for man­age­ment.

4Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may al­low re­lax­a­tions of these re­quire­ments or it may im­pose more strin­gent re­quire­ments.

Art. 67 Tasks  

(Art. 44 Fin­IA)

1With­in the frame of their tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 44 Fin­IA, se­cur­it­ies firms shall en­sure an ef­fect­ive in­tern­al sep­ar­a­tion between the func­tions of trad­ing, as­set man­age­ment and set­tle­ment. Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may al­low ex­emp­tions or it may or­der the sep­ar­a­tion of fur­ther func­tions.

2If they do not op­er­ate primar­ily in the fin­an­cial sec­tor, firms trad­ing for the ac­count of cli­ents and firms act­ing as mar­ket makers with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 41 let­ters a and c Fin­IA must keep se­cur­it­ies trad­ing activ­it­ies leg­ally sep­ar­ate.

3In all oth­er re­spects, Art­icle 14 ap­plies.

Art. 68 Risk management and internal control  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

1Se­cur­it­ies firms must have an ap­pro­pri­ately defined risk man­age­ment sys­tem in place as well as an ef­fect­ive in­tern­al con­trol struc­ture to en­sure in par­tic­u­lar com­pli­ance with leg­al and in­tern­al pro­vi­sions.

2They shall set out guidelines for the ba­sic prin­ciples of risk man­age­ment and define their risk tol­er­ance.

3They will keep the func­tions of risk man­age­ment and com­pli­ance func­tion­ally and hier­arch­ic­ally sep­ar­ate from the op­er­a­tion­al busi­ness units, in par­tic­u­lar from the func­tion of trad­ing.

4Firms trad­ing for the ac­count of cli­ents and firms act­ing as mar­ket makers with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 41 let­ters a and c Fin­IA shall ap­point in­tern­al aud­it­ors who are in­de­pend­ent of man­age­ment. In­tern­al aud­it­ors must be provided with suf­fi­cient re­sources and have un­lim­ited audit rights.

5Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA may al­low re­lax­a­tions of these re­quire­ments or it may im­pose more strin­gent re­quire­ments.

Art. 69 Minimum capital and collateral  

(Art. 45 Fin­IA)

1The min­im­um cap­it­al of se­cur­it­ies firms must amount to at least CHF 1.5 mil­lion and be paid up in full. This amount must be main­tained at all times.

2In the case of com­pan­ies formed us­ing a con­tri­bu­tion in kind, the value of the as­sets con­trib­uted and the ex­tent of li­ab­il­it­ies must be veri­fied by a li­censed audit firm. This also ap­plies to the con­ver­sion of an ex­ist­ing com­pany in­to a se­cur­it­ies firm.

3In the case of se­cur­it­ies firms in the form of a part­ner­ship, cap­it­al is deemed to be:

a.
the cap­it­al ac­counts; and
b.
the as­sets of part­ners with un­lim­ited li­ab­il­ity.

4As­sets in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 may only be coun­ted to­wards the min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ment if a de­clar­a­tion is provided to the ef­fect that:

a.
in the event of li­quid­a­tion, bank­ruptcy or pro­bate pro­ceed­ings, such as­sets shall be sub­or­din­ate to the claims of all oth­er cred­it­ors; and
b.
the se­cur­it­ies firm un­der­takes:
1.
neither to net such as­sets with its own claims nor to se­cure them with its own as­sets,
2.
without the pri­or con­sent of the audit firm, not to re­duce any of the cap­it­al com­pon­ents to the ex­tent that the min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ment is no longer met.

5The de­clar­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 4 is ir­re­voc­able. It must be made in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text and filed with the audit firm.

6FINMA may al­low se­cur­it­ies firms in the form of a part­ner­ship to provide, in­stead of min­im­um cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 3 and 4, col­lat­er­al of at least CHF 1.5 mil­lion, for ex­ample in the form of a bank guar­an­tee or a cash de­pos­it in a blocked ac­count with a bank.

7Where there are le­git­im­ate grounds for so do­ing, FINMA can stip­u­late a high­er min­im­um cap­it­al re­quire­ment.

Art. 70 Capital and risk diversification  

(Art. 46 Fin­IA)

1Se­cur­it­ies firms which them­selves do not hold ac­counts in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 44 para­graph 1 let­ter a Fin­IA must main­tain at all times cap­it­al amount­ing to at least one quarter of the fixed costs re­por­ted in the most re­cent an­nu­al ac­counts and no more than CHF 20 mil­lion.

2Fixed costs are deemed to be:

a.
per­son­nel ex­penses;
b.
op­er­at­ing busi­ness ex­penses;
c.
de­pre­ci­ation of in­vest­ment as­sets;
d.
ex­penses for valu­ation ad­just­ments, pro­vi­sions and losses.

3The por­tion of per­son­nel ex­penses which is ex­clus­ively de­pend­ent on the busi­ness res­ult or in re­la­tion to which no leg­al en­ti­tle­ment ex­ists is to be de­duc­ted from per­son­nel ex­penses.

4Se­cur­it­ies firms which them­selves hold ac­counts in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 44 para­graph 1 let­ter a Fin­IA must com­ply with the pro­vi­sions of the CAO28.

Art. 70a Eligible capital 29  

(Art. 46 Fin­IA)

1 Se­cur­it­ies firms may in­clude the fol­low­ing as cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 70 para­graphs 1 to 3:

paid-up share cap­it­al plus, in the case of part­ner­ships, al­tern­at­ive cap­it­al in­stru­ments;
dis­closed re­serves;
re­tained earn­ings;
the quarterly profits after de­duc­tion of the es­tim­ated profit dis­tri­bu­tion amount;
sub­or­din­ated bonds that are only re­pay­able with the con­sent of FINMA.

2 The cap­it­al un­der para­graph 1 let­ters a to c can be in­cluded in full.

3 70% of the quarterly profits may be in­cluded after de­duct­ing the es­tim­ated profit dis­tri­bu­tion, sub­ject to the ex­ist­ence of a com­plete in­come state­ment in ac­cord­ance with FINMA's im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions based on Art­icle 42 of the Bank­ing Or­din­ance of 30 April 201430 or of a com­plete in­come state­ment in ac­cord­ance with an in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ard re­cog­nised by FINMA, even if the in­come state­ment has not been audited. Where jus­ti­fied, FINMA can re­quire an at­test­a­tion.

4The fol­low­ing must be de­duc­ted in full from the eli­gible cap­it­al un­der para­graph 1 let­ters a to d:

the loss car­ried for­ward and the loss for the cur­rent fin­an­cial year;
the value of any par­ti­cip­a­tions in the con­text of the in­di­vidu­al en­tity cal­cu­la­tion;
good­will, in­clud­ing any good­will in­cluded in the valu­ation of sig­ni­fic­ant in­terests in fin­an­cial sec­tor en­tit­ies out­side the scope of con­sol­id­a­tion, and in­tan­gible as­sets;
de­ferred tax as­sets (DTAs) that de­pend on fu­ture prof­it­ab­il­ity, whereby off­set­ting against cor­res­pond­ing de­ferred tax li­ab­il­it­ies with­in the same geo­graph­ic­al and ma­ter­i­al tax jur­is­dic­tion is per­mit­ted.

5 If the cap­it­al un­der para­graph 1 let­ters a to d ex­ceeds CHF 1.5 mil­lion after the de­duc­tions un­der para­graph 4, 40% of the sub­or­din­ated bonds may be in­cluded for the ex­cess amount.

29 In­ser­ted by No I 7 of the O of 18 June 2021 on the Ad­apt­a­tion of Fed­er­al Law to De­vel­op­ments in Dis­trib­uted Ledger Tech­no­logy, in force since 1 Aug. 2021 (AS 2021 400).

30 SR 952.02

Art. 71 Liquidity  

(Art. 46 Fin­IA)

1Se­cur­it­ies firms which them­selves do not hold ac­counts in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 44 para­graph 1 let­ter a Fin­IA must in­vest their re­sources such that suf­fi­cient li­quid­ity is guar­an­teed at all times.

2Se­cur­it­ies firms which them­selves hold ac­counts in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 44 para­graph 1 let­ter a Fin­IA must com­ply with the pro­vi­sions of the Li­quid­ity Or­din­ance of 30 Novem­ber 201231.

Art. 72 Accounting  

(Art. 45–48 Fin­IA)

The pro­vi­sions on ac­count­ing con­tained in the Bank­ing Or­din­ance of 30 April 201432 ap­ply by ana­logy.

32 SR. 952.02

Art. 73 Internal documentation  

(Art. 9 Fin­IA)

In­tern­al doc­u­ment­a­tion of the se­cur­it­ies firms must al­low the audit firm and FINMA to form a re­li­able pic­ture of the busi­ness activ­it­ies.

Art. 74 Record-keeping duty  

(Art. 50 Fin­IA)

1The se­cur­it­ies firm must keep a re­cord of all or­ders re­ceived by it and all trans­ac­tions in se­cur­it­ies ex­ecuted by it.

2The re­cord-keep­ing duty also ap­plies to or­ders and trans­ac­tions in de­riv­at­ives whose un­der­ly­ing in­stru­ments are se­cur­it­ies ad­mit­ted to trad­ing on a trad­ing ven­ue or DLT trad­ing fa­cil­ity33.

3It ap­plies not only to trans­ac­tions for own ac­count, but also to trans­ac­tions ex­ecuted on be­half of cli­ents.

4FINMA shall reg­u­late which in­form­a­tion is ne­ces­sary and what form it is to be re­cor­ded in.

33 Term in ac­cord­ance with No I 7 of the O of 18 June 2021 on the Ad­apt­a­tion of Fed­er­al Law to De­vel­op­ments in Dis­trib­uted Ledger Tech­no­logy, in force since 1 Aug. 2021 (AS 2021 400). This amend­ment has been taken in­to ac­count only in the pro­vi­sions men­tioned in the AS.

Art. 75 Reporting duty  

(Art. 51 Fin­IA)

1The se­cur­it­ies firm shall re­port all trans­ac­tions it ex­ecutes in­volving se­cur­it­ies ad­mit­ted to trad­ing on a trad­ing ven­ue or DLT trad­ing fa­cil­ity. In par­tic­u­lar, the fol­low­ing must be re­por­ted:

a.
the des­ig­na­tion and num­ber of the se­cur­it­ies pur­chased or sold;
b.
the volume, date and time of the trans­ac­tion;
c.
the price;
d.
the de­tails ne­ces­sary to identi­fy the be­ne­fi­cial own­er.

2The re­port­ing duty also ap­plies to trans­ac­tions in de­riv­at­ives whose un­der­ly­ing in­stru­ments are se­cur­it­ies ad­mit­ted to trad­ing on a trad­ing ven­ue or DLT trad­ing fa­cil­ity.

3It ap­plies not only to trans­ac­tions for own ac­count, but also to trans­ac­tions ex­ecuted on be­half of cli­ents.

4The fol­low­ing trans­ac­tions ex­ecuted abroad do not have to be re­por­ted:

a.
trans­ac­tions in se­cur­it­ies ad­mit­ted to trad­ing on a trad­ing ven­ue or DLT trad­ing fa­cil­ity in Switzer­land and in de­riv­at­ives with such se­cur­it­ies as their un­der­ly­ing in­stru­ments, provided the in­form­a­tion in ques­tion is com­mu­nic­ated to the trad­ing ven­ue or DLT trad­ing fa­cil­ity on the basis of an agree­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32 para­graph 3 FMIA34 or with­in the frame­work of an ex­change of in­form­a­tion between FINMA and the com­pet­ent for­eign su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity if:
1.
said trans­ac­tions are ex­ecuted by the branch of a Swiss se­cur­it­ies firm or by a for­eign ad­mit­ted par­ti­cipant, and
2.
the branch or the for­eign par­ti­cipant is au­thor­ised to trade by the rel­ev­ant for­eign su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity and is re­quired to re­port in the cor­res­pond­ing state or in its state of dom­i­cile;
b.
trans­ac­tions in for­eign se­cur­it­ies ad­mit­ted to trad­ing on a trad­ing ven­ue or DLT trad­ing fa­cil­ity in Switzer­land and in de­riv­at­ives with such se­cur­it­ies as their un­der­ly­ing in­stru­ments, which trans­ac­tions are ex­ecuted on a re­cog­nised for­eign trad­ing ven­ue or DLT trad­ing fa­cil­ity.

5Third parties may be in­volved in re­port­ing.

Section 5 Branches

Art. 76 Foreign financial institutions  

(Art. 52 para. 1 Fin­IA)

1A for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion is any com­pany or­gan­ised in ac­cord­ance with for­eign le­gis­la­tion and which:

a.
pos­sesses au­thor­isa­tion abroad as a fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion;
b.
in the com­pany name, in the de­scrip­tion of its busi­ness pur­pose or in com­mer­cial doc­u­ments uses terms in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 13 para­graph 2 Fin­IA or a term of sim­il­ar mean­ing; or
c.
op­er­ates a fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 Fin­IA.

2If the for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion is ef­fect­ively man­aged from Switzer­land or if it ex­ecutes its trans­ac­tions ex­clus­ively or pre­dom­in­antly in or from Switzer­land, it must be or­gan­ised in ac­cord­ance with Swiss le­gis­la­tion and be sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing do­mest­ic fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions.

Art. 77 Duty to obtain authorisation and authorisation conditions  

(Art. 52 para. 1 and 53 Fin­IA)

1The for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion must have:

a.
au­thor­isa­tion and su­per­vi­sion at least equi­val­ent to the au­thor­isa­tion and su­per­vi­sion re­ques­ted for the branch in Switzer­land;
b.
col­lat­er­al which is com­par­able to that in ac­cord­ance with:
1.
Art­icles 22 and 23 Fin­IA in the case of for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions which man­age as­sets or act as a trust­ee (Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ter a Fin­IA),
2.
Art­icles 28, 29, 36 and 37 Fin­IA in the case of for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions which per­form fund busi­ness, port­fo­lio man­age­ment for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes or port­fo­lio man­age­ment for oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion schemes (Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ter b Fin­IA),
3.
Art­icles 45–47 Fin­IA in the case of for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions which trade se­cur­it­ies, ex­ecute trans­ac­tions or man­age cli­ent ac­counts (Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ters c–e Fin­IA).

2The branch must:

a.
com­ply with the stand­ards of the FinSA35 if it provides fin­an­cial ser­vices in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 let­ter c FinSA;
b.
com­ply with the con­di­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 20 Fin­IA in the case of for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions which man­age as­sets or act as a trust­ee (Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ter a Fin­IA);
c.
be sub­ject to su­per­vi­sion:
1.
in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 61 and 62 Fin­IA in the case of for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions which man­age as­sets or act as a trust­ee,
2.
in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 61 and 63 Fin­IA in the case of for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ters b–e Fin­IA.

3The for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion may only ap­ply for entry of the branch in the com­mer­cial re­gister when FINMA has gran­ted said fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion au­thor­isa­tion to es­tab­lish the branch.

Art. 78 Multiple branches  

(Art. 52 para. 1 and 53 Fin­IA)

1If a for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion es­tab­lishes mul­tiple branches in Switzer­land, it must:

a.
ob­tain au­thor­isa­tion for each one;
b.
des­ig­nate one among them which is re­spons­ible for re­la­tions:
1.
with FINMA and the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion in the case of Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ter a Fin­IA,
2.
with FINMA in the case of Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ters b–e Fin­IA.

2These branches must jointly meet the con­di­tions of the Fin­IA and the present Or­din­ance. An audit re­port is suf­fi­cient.

Art. 79 Annual and interim accounts of branches  

(Art. 52 para. 1 and 53 Fin­IA)

1Branches may draw up their an­nu­al and in­ter­im ac­counts in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions which ap­ply to the for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion, provided they sat­is­fy in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards of ac­count­ing.

2Claims and li­ab­il­it­ies must be stated sep­ar­ately:

a.
in re­spect of the for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion;
b.
in re­spect of com­pan­ies act­ive in the fin­an­cial sec­tor or real es­tate firms if:
1.
the for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion forms an eco­nom­ic unit with them, or
2.
it is to be as­sumed that the for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion is de jure or de facto ob­liged to provide as­sist­ance to group com­pan­ies.

3Para­graph 2 also ap­plies to off-bal­ance-sheet busi­ness.

4A branch shall send its an­nu­al and in­ter­im ac­counts:

a.
to the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion for sub­mis­sion to FINMA in the case of Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ter a Fin­IA;
b.
to FINMA in the case of Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ters b–e Fin­IA.

5Pub­lic­a­tion is not re­quired.

Art. 80 Audit report  

(Art. 52 para. 1 and 53 Fin­IA)

1The audit firm shall send its audit re­port:

a.
to the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion for sub­mis­sion to FINMA in the case of Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ter a Fin­IA;
b.
to FINMA in the case of Art­icle 52 para­graph 1 let­ters b–e Fin­IA.

2It shall provide a copy to the branch man­ager re­spons­ible.

3The branch will send the copy of the audit re­port to the unit of the for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion which is re­spons­ible for the busi­ness activ­it­ies of the branch.

Art. 81 Closure of a branch  

(Art. 52 para. 1 and 53 Fin­IA)

The for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion shall ob­tain the ap­prov­al of FINMA be­fore clos­ing a branch.

Section 6 Representations36

36 Amended by No I 7 of the O of 18 June 2021 on the Adaptation of Federal Law to Developments in Distributed Ledger Technology, in force since 1 Aug. 2021 (AS 2021 400).

(Art. 58 para. 1 and 2 and 59 FinIA)

Art. 82  

1 The rep­res­ent­at­ive of­fice of a for­eign fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion that provides fin­an­cial ser­vices in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 let­ter c of the FinSA37 must:

a.
com­ply with the pro­vi­sions of the FinSA;
b.
enter its cli­ent ad­visers in a re­gister of ad­visers in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 28 of the FinSA if they do not ex­clus­ively provide their ser­vices in Switzer­land to pro­fes­sion­al or in­sti­tu­tion­al cli­ents in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4 of the FinSA.

2 The pro­hib­i­tion on es­tab­lish­ing a rep­res­ent­at­ive of­fice of a for­eign fund man­age­ment com­pany in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 58 para­graph 2 of the Fin­IA38 ap­plies ex­clus­ively to the of­fice's activ­it­ies in re­la­tion to the ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment of in­vest­ment funds.

Chapter 3 Supervision

Section 1 Portfolio Managers and Trustees

Art. 83 Domestic group companies  

(Art. 61 para. 1 and 2 Fin­IA)

1For do­mest­ic port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees which form part of a fin­an­cial group FINMA can provide that on­go­ing su­per­vi­sion is per­formed ex­clus­ively with­in the frame­work of group su­per­vi­sion. This is con­di­tion­al on the group com­pany be­ing closely in­teg­rated in­to the risk man­age­ment, in­tern­al con­trol and in­tern­al audit­ing struc­tures of the fin­an­cial group.

2FINMA shall pub­lish a list of the group com­pan­ies mon­itored by it in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.

Art. 84 Ongoing supervision  

(Art. 61 para. 2 and 62 Fin­IA)

1The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion shall veri­fy on an on­go­ing basis wheth­er the en­tit­ies un­der its su­per­vi­sion spe­cific­ally:

a.
sat­is­fy the re­quire­ments of the Fin­IA;
b.
ob­serve the du­ties pur­su­ant to the Anti-Money Laun­der­ing Act of 10 Oc­to­ber 199739 (AMLA);
c.
ob­serve the du­ties pur­su­ant to the FinSA40 if they provide fin­an­cial ser­vices in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 let­ter c FinSA;
d.
ob­serve the du­ties pur­su­ant to the CISA41 if they per­form activ­it­ies fall­ing un­der the CISA.

2FINMA shall provide the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tions with guidelines for audit­ing and su­per­vi­sion. In par­tic­u­lar, it shall set down for the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tions a sys­tem of risk as­sess­ment as well as min­im­um re­quire­ments to be met by the su­per­vi­sion concept. It shall con­sult with the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tions be­fore­hand.

3Audit ac­tions and their find­ings shall be re­cor­ded in audit re­ports. Audit re­ports shall be pub­lished in an of­fi­cial lan­guage. Ex­emp­tions through audit firms in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 43k FIN­MASA42 re­quire the con­sent of the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion.

4If the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion su­per­vises a fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion whose activ­ity re­quires a high­er au­thor­isa­tion level on ex­ceed­ing thresholds, the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion will mon­it­or com­pli­ance with these thresholds and no­ti­fy FINMA and the fin­an­cial if they are ex­ceeded.

5The is­su­ance of rul­ings is re­served to FINMA. FINMA shall in­ter­vene in the on­go­ing su­per­vi­sion by the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion if this is ne­ces­sary to en­force the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 1 para­graph 1 FIN­MASA.

Art. 85 Coordination of supervisory activities  

(Art. 5 and 62 Fin­IA)

With re­spect to the su­per­vi­sion of port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees, FINMA and the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tions will co­ordin­ate their su­per­vis­ory activ­it­ies in or­der to avoid du­plic­a­tion.

Art. 86 Appointment of audit firms  

(Art. 62 para. 1 Fin­IA)

Where the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion does not it­self con­duct the audit of su­per­vised en­tit­ies, it will en­sure that:

a.
the ap­poin­ted audit firm is cor­rectly man­dated and au­thor­ised in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 43k FIN­MASA43;
b.
the ap­poin­ted audit firm im­ple­ments the guidelines provided by FINMA;
c.
the areas audited and the cor­res­pond­ing depths of audit of risk as­sess­ments are com­men­sur­ate with its su­per­vi­sion concept; and
d.
it is in­formed im­me­di­ately of any ir­reg­u­lar­it­ies.
Art. 87 Audit frequency  

(Art. 62 para. 2 and 3 Fin­IA)

1When de­fin­ing the audit fre­quency and the in­tens­ity of su­per­vi­sion, the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion shall be guided by the risks as­so­ci­ated with the activ­ity of those su­per­vised and the risks as­so­ci­ated with their or­gan­isa­tion.

2In years in which no reg­u­lar audit takes place, the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall col­lect stand­ard­ised data on the risks as­so­ci­ated with those su­per­vised.

3It shall as­sess the self-de­clared data col­lec­ted and take fur­ther meas­ures where ne­ces­sary.

4FINMA shall set down for, and in con­sulta­tion with, the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion guidelines for con­duct­ing an as­sess­ment in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1–3.

Section 2 Managers of Collective Assets, Fund Management Companies, Securities Firms, Financial Groups and Financial Conglomerates

Art. 88 Auditing  

(Art. 61 para. 3 and 63 Fin­IA)

1The audit firm shall veri­fy wheth­er the en­tit­ies un­der its su­per­vi­sion spe­cific­ally:

a.
sat­is­fy the re­quire­ments of the Fin­IA;
b.
ob­serve the du­ties pur­su­ant to the AMLA44;
c.
ob­serve the du­ties pur­su­ant to the FinSA45 if it provides fin­an­cial ser­vices in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 let­ter c FinSA;
d.
ob­serve the du­ties pur­su­ant to the CISA46 if they per­form activ­it­ies fall­ing un­der the CISA.

2Su­per­vised en­tit­ies for which the audit firm sub­mits an an­nu­al risk ana­lys­is are ex­emp­ted from the duty to re­port on their busi­ness activ­ity's com­pli­ance in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 63 para­graph 3 Fin­IA.

Art. 89 Cooperation between audit firms  

(Art. 63 Fin­IA)

The audit firms of su­per­vised en­tit­ies which co­oper­ate in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 14, 27 or 35 Fin­IA must them­selves co­oper­ate closely.

Section 3 Measures under Insolvency Law

(Art. 67 FinIA)

Art. 90  

Art­icle 24 BankA47 ap­plies by ana­logy to fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies and se­cur­it­ies firms.

Chapter 4 Final Provisions

Art. 91 Repeal and amendment of other legislative instruments  

(Art. 73 Fin­IA)

The re­peal and amend­ment of oth­er le­gis­lat­ive in­stru­ments are set out in the An­nex.

Art. 92 Transitional provisions for portfolio managers and trustees  

(Art. 74 Fin­IA)

1Port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees which un­til entry in­to force of the Fin­IA were su­per­vised by FINMA as fin­an­cial in­ter­me­di­ar­ies dir­ectly sub­or­din­ated to it pur­su­ant to the AMLA48 are no longer re­quired to be af­fil­i­ated to a self-reg­u­lat­ory or­gan­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 AMLA if, with­in one year of entry in­to force of the Fin­IA, they:

a.
re­ceive con­firm­a­tion from a su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion that they are sub­ject to su­per­vi­sion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 7 para­graph 2 Fin­IA; and
b.
sub­mit an au­thor­isa­tion ap­plic­a­tion to FINMA.

2They shall sub­mit a re­port on their busi­ness activ­ity's com­pli­ance with the pro­vi­sions of the AMLA:

a.
to the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion pri­or to be­ing sub­ject to su­per­vi­sion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 7 para­graph 2 Fin­IA; or
b.
to the self-reg­u­lat­ory or­gan­isa­tion pri­or to af­fil­i­ation ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 14 AMLA.
Art. 93 Further transitional provisions  

(Art. 74 Fin­IA)

1Art­icle 5 para­graph 2 Fin­IA is not ap­plic­able to fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions which on entry in­to force of the Fin­IA are already entered in the com­mer­cial re­gister.

2Fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions which provide ser­vices in ac­cord­ance with the FinSA49 must be af­fil­i­ated to the om­buds­man's of­fice with­in six months of the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Fin­ance re­cog­nising or es­tab­lish­ing for them an om­buds­man's of­fice in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 84 FinSA. The peri­od is deemed met on sub­mis­sion of the ap­plic­a­tion.

3Fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions that have their re­gistered of­fice abroad and by reas­on of a branch or rep­res­ent­a­tion in Switzer­land already hold au­thor­isa­tion are not re­quired to sub­mit a new ap­plic­a­tion for au­thor­isa­tion. They must sat­is­fy the leg­al re­quire­ments with­in one year of entry in­to force.

4Fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions that have their re­gistered of­fice abroad and by reas­on of a branch or rep­res­ent­a­tion in Switzer­land are newly re­quired to ob­tain au­thor­isa­tion pur­su­ant to the Fin­IA shall re­port to FINMA with­in six months of entry in­to force. They must sat­is­fy the leg­al re­quire­ments and sub­mit an ap­plic­a­tion for au­thor­isa­tion with­in three years of entry in­to force. They may con­tin­ue their activ­it­ies un­til a de­cision on au­thor­isa­tion is made.

5Art­icle 77 para­graph 3 is not ap­plic­able to branches which on entry in­to force of the Fin­IA are already entered in the com­mer­cial re­gister.

6Ex­emp­tions gran­ted by FINMA based on Art­icle 18 para­graph 3 CISA50 in the ver­sion of 28 Septem­ber 201251 to man­agers of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes re­main val­id un­der Art­icle 7 of the present Or­din­ance.

Art. 94 Commencement  

This Or­din­ance enters in­to force on 1Janu­ary 2020.

Annex

(Art. 91)

Repeal and amendment of other legislative instruments

I

The Stock Exchange Ordinance of 2 December 199652 is repealed.

II

The legislative instruments below are amended as follows:

53

52 [AS 1997 852044Art. 2, 2004 2781, 2005 4849No III, 2006 4307 Annex 7 No 2, 2008 5363Annex No 9, 2012 5441Annex 6 No 3, 2013 1111, 2014 1269Annex 2 No 6 2321 Annex 4 No 2 4295 Annex No 4, 2015 5413Annex 1 No 12, 2017 3715No III]

53 The amendments may be consulted under AS 2019 4633.

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