6th February 2017 -IAM
Christophe Rusconi, Head of Trading IAM
The financial sector of our country has not yet finished its regulatory changes. Soon two new important texts will be presented to the Chambers: one is the Financial Services Act (FinSA) and the other is Financial Institutions Act (FinIA).
The FinSA is inspired by the European regulation MIFID, which is adapted to the Swiss context. The FinSA should impose to financial intermediaries, that they provide appropriate information and advice. This law should for example provide guidance for the establishment of uniform prospectuses as well as basic and simple information sheets, which are easily understandable by private investors, allowing them to compare different financial products.
The FinIA will regulate in one single text the supervision of financial services providers. This law will include all current rules and will integrate new elements. There will for example be a hierarchy for authorisations. In the future the FINMA might be able to provide „general“ authorisations, which covers several activities (collective investment funds, securities dealers…). These activities currently require an authorisation each.
The two laws still have to be voted by the Federal Parliament and are therefore still likely to be amended. Their entry into force is likely to be in 2018 only.
