FinSA/FinIA: a milestone for the exportability of Swiss financial services

The CISA currently essentially governs three different areas:

1. the licensing and supervision of financial institutions
2. the distribution of collective investment schemes
3. the approval of collective investment schemes as well as other product-specific rules

The FinSA and FinIA have now broken up this extensive collection of rules in collective investment schemes legislation and transferred them to the new financial market legislation architecture.

1. The approval and supervision of fund management companies and managers of collective assets are now governed by the FinIA and its implementing ordinances (FinIO and FinIO-FINMA).
2. The “distribution” of financial instruments, the provision of financial services, and the corresponding duties at the point of sale are now governed by the FinSA and its implementing ordinance (FinSO).
3. Product-specific rules, such as the approval requirement for collective investment schemes as well as rules on the custodian bank or representative and paying agent, remain exclusive to the CISA and its implementing ordinances (CISO and CISO-FINMA).
4. Self-regulation continues to play a key role in the new financial market legislation architecture and must be adapted in line with the new rules. It will in future focus more on product- and institution-specific aspects and address purely distribution-related aspects only in exceptional cases.