SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Lukas Morscher and Lukas Staub, Lenz & Staehelin
that have a physical presence in Switzerland and generally does not extend to foreign institutions active on a cross-border basis. For example, foreign payment service providers operating exclusively through electronic channels or the internet are usually not subject to AMLA. How - ever, regardless of AMLA’s application, the gen - eral prohibition against money laundering under criminal law still applies. Institutions offering cross-border payments in or from Switzerland would of course have to be fully compliant with AMLA, including on KYC. FinSA applies to financial services, defined as certain services in relation to financial instru - ments and not including typical payment ser - vices. 6. Marketplaces, Exchanges and Trading Platforms 6.1 Permissible Trading Platforms Marketplaces and trading platforms are regu - lated by the Financial Markets Infrastructure Act (FMIA). Under the FMIA, organised trading facilities for the multilateral trading of securities and other financial instruments require authori - sation from FINMA. Trading facilities can seek authorisation as either a stock exchange or a multilateral trading facility. Furthermore, author - ised banks, marketplaces (ie, stock exchanges or multilateral trading facilities) and securities firms may also operate an organised trading facility without additional authorisation. The FMIA also regulates payment systems. However, they do not need authorisation from FINMA, unless the payment system’s authorisa - tion is essential for the financial market’s proper functioning or the protection of its participants. Currently, there is no authorised payment sys -
tem in Switzerland. The Federal Council has recently proposed draft legislation that would clarify and potentially slightly expand the scope, but such legislation will enter into force in 2027 at the earliest. Regarding the trading of digital assets, the DLT/ blockchain legislation introduced, in 2021, the so-called DLT trading facility as an additional licence (see 10.2 Local Regulators’ Approach to Blockchain ). The main differences from the current regulation are that the new DLT trading facility licence allows individuals to participate in such a trading facility without an intermediary, and settlement and trading services are to be provided by a single entity. FINMA authorised the first DLT trading facility, BX Digital, on 18 March 2025. 6.2 Regulation of Different Asset Classes The FMIA essentially differentiates between two asset classes: • derivatives or derivative transactions – finan - cial contracts whose value depends on one or several underlying assets and which are not cash transactions; and • securities – standardised certificated and uncertificated securities, derivatives and intermediated securities, which are suitable for mass trading. With respect to derivatives, the FMIA foresees additional obligations, such as: • clearing through a central counterparty; • the use of authorised trading facilities; and • position limits in the case of commodity derivatives. The FMIA is generally technology-neutral and applies identically to tokens that meet the cri -
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