Fee Regulation
The Fee Regulations regulate in particular the costs of affiliation, ongoing supervision and other fee rates that can be charged to the supervised financial institutions by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA. 

Supervisory concept
The supervisory activities of FINcontrol Suisse Ltd primarily concern the relationship between supervised financial institutions and the supervisory organization. However, the contribution of external audit firms is equally crucial. The supervisory concept defines the principles of the supervisory and auditing activities of FINcontrol Suisse Ltd and/or external audit firms as well as the tasks and obligations of the supervised financial institutions affiliated with FINcontrol Suisse Ltd.

List of recognized ombudsman's offices
Below you will find a list of ombudsman's offices recognized by the Federal Department of Finance FDF. FINcontrol Suisse Ltd does not make any recommendations or specifications regarding the choice of ombudsman; any ombudsman institution recognized by the FDF can be chosen. The selected ombudsman's office must be disclosed in the respective documents of the financial institution.

Requirements on continued professional education

Please note that, based on instructions of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA, FINcontrol Suisse Ltd is not allowed to offer trainings on continued professional education in the fields of FinIA and FinSA. Moreover, FINcontrol Suisse Ltd does not instruct which courses must be visited. The attended courses must be relevant for the specific function performed and the chosen business model of the financial institution at hand. Art. 25 para. 3 FinIO stipulates this for qualified managers. Moreover, (1) the employees of any financial institution must receive the initial and continued education with regard to FinSA’s code of conduct and the special know-how required in order to successfully perform their specific tasks (art. 23 FinSO) and (2) all employees working in the area of AMLA must be regularly educated in this area (art. 27 AMLO-FINMA).

As a benchmark, FINcontrol Suisse Ltd. considers half a day per year to be appropriate to visit any suitable education.

Checklist - important thoughts and documents

The following is a non-exhaustive list of ideas, important key data and documents to be prepared and/or submitted:

• Confirmation of an ombudsman's office (cf. art. 16 FinIA and art. 74 ff. FinSA)
• Organizational clarifications and decisions:
  • Do the key persons, namely the persons entrusted with the administration and management of the financial institution as well as the qualified participants meet the requirements for warranty (impeccable management and good reputation)? (see Art. 20 FinIA and Art. 25 FinIO or Art. 14 AMLA)
  • Do the key persons, namely the Qualified Managing Directors, meet the legal requirements regarding qualifications (experience and training)? (see Art. 20 FinIA and Art. 25 FinIO)
  • Does the size of the company or gross income require personnel separation between operating business and risk management/risk control? (see Art. 9 and 21 FinIA and Art. 26 FinIO)
  • Are personnel separations between the operating business and the management body necessary due to the size of the company or gross income? (cf. Art. 9 and 21 FinIA and Art. 23 and 26 FinIO)
• Are all the necessary documents available and do they reflect the legal and regulatory requirements for carrying out the planned activity? Please find below free English translations of the most important information sheets (in case of any discrepancy, the German versions of the information sheets available on our homepage shall prevail):
  • Articles of Association
  • Organization Regulations
  • Directives on all relevant topics: e.g. AMLA, compliance, code of conduct, investment processes, conflicts of interest, portfolio management conduct, business continuity, staff transactions, dealing with clients, content of information, diligence and transparency, delegation of activities for financial institutions, etc.
  • Information documents, e.g. concerning the company's own financial products
  • Risk management: Internal control system based on a holistic risk analysis
  • Contracts (e.g. portfolio management contracts, employment contracts, etc.)
  • Information on objectives/business plan under the new regulatory regime

List of known advisors / consulting institutes

Please find below a list (constantly updated) of advisors or consulting institutes who successfully submitted applications to FINcontrol Suisse Ltd (or helped financial institutions to prepare and create such applications) in the past. These advisors are familiar with the requirements and standards set by FINcontrol Suisse Ltd and FINcontrol Suisse Ltd knows the standard documents of such advisors:

• Adiuris AG
• Alithis AG
• AvelaLaw AG
• BDO AG
• Compliance Group AG
• Cynos AG
• Grant Thornton AG
• GWP Geissbühler & Weber und Partner AG
• Kellerhals Carrard (FIDLEG Solution)
• KollerLaw Rechtsanwälte
• KPMG AG
• LEXIMPACT
• Lexpert Partners AG
• Pestalozzi Rechtsanwälte AG
• Peak Compliance AG
• PWC AG
• SwissComply AG

It might be advisable to cooperate with advisors / consulting institutes for the sake of efficient application processing. As indicated, the list is constantly updated. FINcontrol Suisse Ltd entered into no agreements / obligations with any of these advisors / consulting institutes. The choice for or against any application advice remains with the financial institutions.

Important information sheets and orientation aids

Below you will find selected information sheets and tools that provide you with details on the most important organizational requirements (currently only in German). In particular, you will find in the below descriptions the requirements and basic principles arising from the new licensing regime for portfolio managers and trustees, the qualifications required of key personnel, the organization of a financial institution, the capital requirements and the most important milestones on a time axis.

Lizenzpflicht Vermögensverwalter Individualkunden

Lizenzpflicht Vermögensverwalter Kollektivvermögen

Anforderungen an Schlüsselpositionen

Anforderungen qualifizierte Geschäftsführer

Anforderungen Organisation

Anforderungen Kapital

Übergangsfristen

Please note that these documents will be continuously updated as soon as there are new developments and/or adjustments in individual areas.

Instruction for license application

FINcontrol Suisse Ltd acts as a supervisory organisation within the supervisory regime established by FINMASA, AMLA, FinIA and FinSA. Licenses are granted by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA.

The licence application procedure always includes the following steps:

1. submission of an application via the FINMA survey platform (EHP). On the EHP, you can choose the supervisory organization to which you wish to apply for a connection - specifically FINcontrol Suisse Ltd.
2. connection check by FINcontrol Suisse Ltd.
3. license application to FINMA (after confirmation of connection by FINcontrol Suisse Ltd).
4. ongoing prudential supervision by FINcontrol Suisse Ltd.

The application process as well as future interaction between financial institutions, supervisory organization and FINMA is to take place digitally. FINcontrol Suisse AG offers the best service for this through its own database, which is continuously connected to the EHP of FINMA via interfaces. The efficient, low-cost and transparent exchange of information and documentation is thus guaranteed at all times.

Application - Documents of FINMA

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority provides various forms for the preparation of the application as a financial institution. In particular, you will find an application form on the FINMA website, as well as forms for the guarantors. It is recommended that your application is based on these forms. You can find the documents under the link below.

The forms are available in "folded out" form. This shows interested institutes what additional information is to be provided, depending on how they fill out the individual questions in the form. The total number of pages will therefore vary depending on the application and content.

The follow-up audit at FINcontrol Suisse AG is based on the same records and documents as those provided by FINMA. FINcontrol Suisse AG will therefore not introduce a "FINcontrol" finish, but will base the audit on the documentation that you as a financial institution have to compile for FINMA anyway.

Below you will find a commentary on the most important elements of the FINMA application form. This document can also be read dynamically - it will be supplemented and expanded in the coming days and weeks. It is based on the form "Ausklappt - Bewilligung als Finanzinstitut nach FINIG", which you can download via the FINMA link above.

Affiliation procedure FINcontrol Suisse Ltd

In the following overview you will find a description of the affiliation procedure at FINcontrol Suisse Ltd. After completion of the affiliation procedure, the financial institutions must submit their application to FINMA within 60 days.

The FINMA survey platform (EHP) is to be used for both the connection procedure and the subsequent licensing procedure. As soon as you have uploaded your application to the EHP, you can select FINcontrol Suisse Ltd as your supervisory organization. FINcontrol Suisse Ltd will then be informed that an application has been assigned to it and, thanks to the IT database set up specifically for this purpose, will be able to obtain this application and continue the simplified, digitized interaction with the applicant financial institutions.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that at the latest when the application is submitted, the financial institutions will be asked to register on the FINcontrol Suisse Ltd database. The interaction between FINcontrol Suisse AG and the supervised institutions will thus be simplified and made more efficient.

Terms and conditions Preliminary examination of licence applications