Dossiers

Portfolio managers and trustees must be authorised by FINMA in order to carry out their activities and are supervised by a supervisory organisation. The authorisation conditions are set out in the Financial Institutions Act (FinIA). Details of the authorisation process, transitional provisions and information about further topics as well as developments are provided on this page.

The issue of sustainable finance is part of FINMA’s mandate. In its strategic goals 2021 – 2024, FINMA committed to contributing to the sustainable development of the Swiss financial centre. This web dossier contains FINMA’s key information about this topic.

The current situation relating to the coronavirus also affects the financial sector. Important information published by FINMA on this topic can be found here.

The volume of mortgages in Switzerland is significant and has increased considerably over the years. This raises the risk of an overheating of the real estate market. FINMA works to ensure that mortgage lending is sustainable and that the solvency of banks is not put at risk. This page provides key information on this topic.

Innovation is an important part of maintaining competitiveness in the Swiss financial centre. FINMA pays close attention to the challenges arising from FinTech regarding licensing requirements, supervision and regulation. This page provides key information on this topic.

Increasing professionalisation of criminals and ever shorter times between the announcement and exploitation of critical security vulnerabilities are keeping the financial industry on its toes. A successful attack can lead to outages and interruptions of information and communication technology systems and jeopardise the protective goals of availability, confidentiality and integrity. Specific risk drivers include a lack of awareness of how to deal with cyber risks – be it among employees or due to inadequate governance. In addition, the cyber processes at many institutions are too fragmented to allow them to make a comprehensive assessment of their own cyber risk situation. Risk therefore remains high in this area.

Preventing money laundering is an important part of FINMA's work. This page provides key information on this topic.

FINMA seeks to increase efficiency in regulation and supervision for small and particularly solid institutions. The goal is to reduce the regulatory burden on the smallest banks without jeopardising their stability and safety. This page provides key information on this topic.

Systemically important financial institutions can jeopardise entire economies in the event of a disorderly failure and are therefore regarded as “too big to fail” (TBTF). Following the financial crisis of 2007/2008, the Swiss legislator promulgated special rules for the stabilisation, restructuring or liquidation of such institutions. Every year FINMA reports on the progress of this recovery and resolution planning.