Joint Forum

The Joint Forum is comprised of an equal number of banking, insurance and securities trading supervisors. It was established in 1996 and ultimately resulted from an initiative of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) to promote cross-sector cooperation and basic harmonisation of supervisory rules between the international supervisory bodies for the banking, securities trading (International Organization of Securities Commissions, IOSCO) and insurance (International Association of Insurance Supervisors, IAIS) sectors. FINMA appoints one representative each from the banking and insurance supervision authorities to represent Switzerland’s interests in the Joint Forum.

The Joint Forum’s mandate encompasses in particular issues relating to the supervision of conglomerates and other current issues of common interest to technical experts in all three sectors. Alongside the priorities of the three parent committees, requests from other organisations such as the Financial Stability Board (FSB) are regularly taken into account when selecting topics for study.