Prudent Legislating, Swiss-Style

The Swiss fintech and crypto landscape has evolved significantly over the past years, leading up to a recent boost in regulatory developments with further changes on the horizon.

Status quo and the upcoming agenda on fintech

Swiss financial regulation is characteristically principle-based rather than rule-based, allowing it to cope with a good measure of innovation without the need for constant changes to the legal framework. Nevertheless, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) undertook significant efforts to support the emerging fintech sector and to clarify regulatory uncertainties, starting in late 2016. In particular, Finma amended some of its regulatory circulars to be technology-neutral, with a view to facilitating fintech business models without foregoing its regulatory objectives. Thus, it lifted the formal requirement for asset management contracts to be agreed in writing and enabled video and online identification processes to satisfy