SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Lukas Morscher and Lukas Staub, Lenz & Staehelin
Fintech licences involve less stringent regulatory requirements than a banking licence. Strict banking equity ratio requirements, as well as liquidity require - ments, do not apply. In addition, there are lower minimum capital requirements: fintech licence hold - ers must maintain capital amounting to 3% of public deposits, but in any case not less than CHF300,000. In 2023, FINMA published its revised guidelines for the fintech licence, setting out the information and docu - mentation needed to apply for one. These include a list of all participants holding a direct or indirect inter - est of 5% in the applicant, information on the govern - ing bodies and the activities of the company, plus a three-year financial forecast. To be clear, the fintech licence is not a banking licence, and companies operating under such a licence do not qualify as banking institutions and may not be desig - nated as such. By extension, client deposits are not covered by the Swiss deposit protection scheme, and clients must be duly informed of this, as well as of the attendant risks. In March 2020, FINMA granted the first fintech licence to an app-based bank called Yapeal. The other three companies holding a fintech licence are Bivial, Relio and SR Saphirstein. At least two more former fintech licence holders have already been put into liquida - tion. With only four current licence holders, the fintech licence is not considered a big success, and the Swiss government proposed in late 2025 to replace it with two new licences: a payment institution licence spe - cifically for payment activities including issuing sta - blecoins and a crypto institution licence specifically for certain custodial and trading activities in relation to crypto-assets. The proposals are currently under public consultation and will not enter into force before 2028. 2.6 Jurisdiction of Regulators FINMA is generally responsible for authorisation, supervision and enforcement under Swiss financial market laws. FINMA adopts a risk-oriented approach to supervision, meaning examinations depend on the risk posed by the financial market participant in question. The applicable financial market laws are enforced by FINMA, which may include administrative measures where necessary. FINMA’s powers include
precautionary measures and measures to restore compliance with the law, withdrawing authorisation, liquidating unauthorised companies, issuing industry bans and ordering the disgorgement of profits gener - ated illegally. It can also publish final decisions naming those involved. Since naming companies or individu - als is restricted by law, FINMA generally only publish - es information on ongoing or completed enforcement proceedings if there is a particular public interest – eg, to protect investors, creditors or policyholders. Besides FINMA, criminal prosecution authorities and self-regulatory organisations (SROs) are involved in enforcing financial market laws. Where irregularities fall under criminal law, FINMA may file a complaint with the competent authorities (Federal Department of Finance (FDF), Office of the Attorney General and can - tonal prosecutors). There are other authorities, such as the Competition Commission and the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner, which may FINMA has a practice of issuing no-action letters upon request for specific factual circumstances presented to FINMA in detail in writing. FINMA issues no-action letters as regards regulatory aspects under laws that FINMA enforces (eg, AMLA, FinIA, the Banking Act) but not for any other laws (eg, data protection laws). No-action letters are subject to a fee. Their validity is limited to the requesting party and only to the extent the actually implemented business fully corresponds to the factual circumstances presented to FINMA. Due to the high demand for no-action letters in the fintech sector (approximately 100 per year according to FINMA), FINMA has created a dedicated team for fintech matters that, among others, deals with these requests from the fintech sector. Note that with other Swiss authorities (eg, in the area of data protection), no-action letters are less common. 2.8 Outsourcing of Regulated Functions The outsourcing of significant business areas of reg - ulated entities is subject to certain requirements. In essence, Swiss financial market law sets forth three different outsourcing regimes. also enforce relevant laws. 2.7 No-Action Letters
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