Fintech 2026

SWITZERLAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Kilian Schärli, Reto Luthiger, Andrea Trost and Diana Lafita, MLL Legal

When it comes to structuring operations with respect to the issuance of tokenised financial instruments, Swiss law is currently used as it is well-known to inter - national players for offering a high degree of legal cer - tainty. Accordingly, international tokenisation transac - tions often apply Swiss law (ledger-based securities according to the Code of Obligations) to the tokeni - sation of financial instruments, despite the rest of the issuance programmes being subject to other laws – and the issuer and investors being located outside of Switzerland. In conclusion, international market participants aim to identify the most effective structures and regulatory frameworks to establish robust and lucrative fintech solutions, with Switzerland allowing different levels of involvement. Due to withholding taxes, Switzerland is in the main not an issuer country. Swiss regulatory trends The key regulatory changes shaping the Swiss fintech sector are as follows. Risks regarding custody of crypto-assets Due to growing investor interest in crypto-based assets, FINMA issued Guidance 01/2026 in January 2026 to raise awareness of the risks associated with the custody of crypto-based assets. The Guidance focuses in particular on the risks that banks and other financial institutions should consider when offering crypto-asset custody services. The following points are highlighted. • Institutions must have sufficient technical expertise to operate and maintain the underlying infrastruc - ture. • Where custody is outsourced to a third party, financial institutions must ensure that the custodian is established in a jurisdiction that provides for the segregation of crypto-assets in the event of the custodian’s bankruptcy. • In Switzerland, as a rule, only supervised banks and fintech institutions may offer collective custody of crypto-based assets. Fintech institutions must be able to attribute the relevant assets to each client at all times, given the counterparty risks to which clients are exposed. Under Swiss law, any other provider may offer only individual custody, for

which segregation in insolvency is clearly ensured under Swiss bankruptcy rules. • To the extent that crypto-based assets are not on- lent, no capital requirements apply to the bank in connection with assets to be segregated. • When Swiss portfolio managers invest in crypto- assets on behalf of clients, they are generally required to appoint a custodian (in Switzerland or abroad) that is subject to prudential supervision equivalent to Swiss standards – or at least (albeit only in certain circumstances) ensures bankruptcy remoteness. More stringent AML scrutiny Following the evaluations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Switzerland implemented a major reform of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) in 2025, introducing a central register of ultimate beneficial owners and extending AML obligations to advisers acting in a structuring, organisational or administrative capacity. Beyond these legislative changes, regulatory practice indicates increased enforcement pressure, with crypto service providers in particular subject to heightened scrutiny of their AML obligations. In July 2024, FINMA’s issued its Stablecoin Guid - ance, clarifying that AMLA also applies to stablecoin secondary market transactions and that a stablecoin issuer with a seat or physical presence in Switzerland is considered as a financial intermediary subject to AMLA. This requires issuers of stablecoins with a seat in Switzerland to verify the identity of the stablecoin holder in secondary market transactions. FINMA’s position was heavily criticised by market participants, as it goes beyond international standards and what is often feasible in practice for stablecoin issuers. The new Crypto Bill, as defined below, has considered this criticism and provided a new and more plausible approach, establishing a duty to identify and establish the identity of the contractual counterparty and ben - eficial owner at the moment of issuance and redemp - tion – albeit only to assess the risk of transactions in the secondary market, for instance by introducing white-listing or black-listing mechanisms, and includ - ing freezing, pausing and redeeming functions in the relevant blockchain.

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