The Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) recently held a consultation with the aim to issue regulation implementing the Financial Services Act FinSA and the Financial Institutions Act FinIA. The consultation’s outcome is the following:

FINMA will make adjustments to the existing ordinances and circulars;
It will issue a new Financial Institutions Ordinance;
It will repeal three circulars that are no longer needed.

These provisions are expected to come into force on January 1 2021.

In particular, the new Financial Institutions Ordinance (FMIO-FINMA) will regulate the details of professional indemnity insurance for portfolio managers, trustees and managers of collective assets.

Lastly, FINMA has also acknowledged the heightened money-laundering risks in the cryptocurrency sector, and therefore decided to lower the client identification threshold values for exchange transactions in cryptocurrencies from CHF 5,000 to CHF 1,000.

SOURCE: www.finma.ch