According to the Federal Council's timetable, the final versions of the Financial Services Ordinance (FinSO) and the Financial Institutions Ordinance (FinIO) are set to be published at the beginning of November 2019.

Platform business models has changed how businesses are conceptualised and conducted. Interested to know more about the value of a platform business model?

In April this year, the European Parliament voted to adopt a new directive and a new regulation with regard to cross-border distribution of alternative investment funds (“AIFs”) and undertakings for collective investments in transferable securities (“UCITS”). The regulatory package has now been finalised and published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

After almost a ten year delay, the U.S. Senate has finally approved the protocol (the 2009 Protocol) to amend the double tax treaty between the Swiss Confederation and the United States of America.

The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (“CLOUD Act”) at its core allows US law enforcement authorities to request from cloud providers in the United States (US) data over which they exercise possession, custody or control. It may affect also data hosted by communication service providers (“CSP”), such us cloud or email suppliers, on servers in member states of the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland.

The Regulatory Technical Standards on strong customer authentication and secure api (RTS on SCA & CSC), which will apply from 14 September 2019, are the key to achieving the objectives of PSD2.

The European Parliament and EU Council have recently agreed to a game-changing piece of legislation that will help protect persons reporting incidents (“whistleblowers”) across Europe. It is the first time that the EU will have a dedicated legislation in this area.

The impact of EMIR Refit on Swiss-based entities as parties to OTC derivative contracts with EU-based counterparties and for Swiss banks that have affected corporate clients

It was expected, or at least there was wishful thinking, that MiFID II (2014/65/EU)
and GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) would be the regulatory summit for our
high mountain region. However, the European Regulator is continuing to pursue
its overall goal of strengthening the regulatory framework in the European Union,
which, in turn, is having a major impact on the Swiss financial industry.

In 2017, the Swiss Financial Market Authority (FINMA) declared its intent to grant certain exemptions and preferential rules to particularly solid small banks. FINMA’s underlying idea is to reduce the regulatory burden, which has been increasing ever since the 2008 financial crisis, for small banks with above-average capitalisation and high liquidity.

Switzerland is about to introduce the next generation of DLT legislation that ensures that it will keep its reputation as most DLT friendly nation in the world. As the DLT markets mature, the regulatory focus is shifting from primary markets to secondary markets. The new proposed Swiss legislation, subject to consultation until 28 June 2019 and likely to enter into force on 1 January 2020, is addressing one of the most important missing parts in the DLT regulatory infrastructure – the regulatory and legal framework of the secondary markets for security tokens.

Switzerland is about to introduce the next generation of DLT-legislation that ensures that it will keep its reputation as most DLT-friendly nation in the world. As the DLT-markets mature, the regulatory focus is shifting from primary markets to secondary markets. The new proposed Swiss legislation that is subject to consultation until 28 June 2019 and likely to enter into force on 1 January 2020 is addressing one of the most important missing parts in the DLT-regulatory infrastructure – the regulatory and legal framework of the secondary markets for security tokens.