Enforcement

FINMA applies enforcement as a visible means of acting against breaches of supervisory law and to restore compliance with the law. These enforcement proceedings may be conducted against licence holders and their employees, against unauthorised financial services providers and against any participants in the Swiss financial market.

FINMA’s commitment to protecting financial market clients is impressively reflected by the fact that it concluded 55 enforcement proceedings in the year under review. FINMA also took action specifically in the area of unauthorised financial market activities. Based on information from the public, authorities and its supervisory activities, it opened 463 investigations into potentially unauthorised companies and individuals. It also conducted 322 investigations, in particular of authorised institutions and in the context of market supervision. In order to protect clients, FINMA restored compliance with the law or initiated further proceedings. It also made over 300 entries on its warning list, warning investors of potentially unauthorised financial market providers, which is a record high.

Since the revised Insurance Supervision Act (ISA) and the revised Insurance Supervision Ordinance (ISO) came into force on 1 January 2024, untied insurance intermediaries have been subject to increased regulatory requirements, particularly with regard to good reputation and guaranteeing good conduct. They must be entered in the FINMA register for untied insurance intermediaries. In the year under review, a high number of over 100 registrations were withdrawn or rejected by FINMA following its intervention. In addition, FINMA filed criminal charges on suspicion of criminal behaviour in 110 cases.

Most refusals of applications for registration fell into one of the following categories:

• Presence of relevant criminal convictions, in particular for offences against property or forgery offences relating to professional activities
• Presence of certificates of loss, in particular in the case of repeated certificates of loss and certificates of loss involving large amounts
• Persons who provided substantially incorrect or incomplete information or who submitted forged documents
• Persons who failed to cooperate as required in a review of irreproachable business conduct or who were no longer contactable; in such cases, decisions not to consider the application were usually issued
• Intermediaries with a history of a large number of cancellations of concluded policies or persons who were involved in fraudulent insurance intermediation or bankruptcies
• Firms of insurance intermediaries that employed staff without the necessary registration as untied insurance intermediaries or that allowed them to act as both tied and untied insurance intermediaries in violation of the legal requirement to choose to act either as one or the other

During the period under review, a first court judgment was handed down on the application for registration of a person who had been convicted twice within a short period of time for trading in small quantities of narcotics. The Federal Administrative Court required FINMA to grant this person’s application for registration. However, the judgment was handed down under the old law. It remains unclear whether the court would have ruled the same way under the new law and whether FINMA would also be required to register persons with convictions for serious narcotics offences.

FINMA will continue to tighten its licensing practice for insurance intermediaries, while taking court practice into account on an ongoing basis. Several appeals against rejected applications for registration were pending before the Federal Administrative Court at the end of 2025. 

In the year under review, FINMA continued its practice regarding irreproachable business conduct reviews. As a condition for registration or the granting of a licence, the requirement for a guarantee of irreproachable business conduct is made up of professional suitability for the specific function sought (fitness) and integrity (properness). Due to facts that might prove relevant in the context of proper business conduct requirements, FINMA conducted an in-depth review of the application by an independent portfolio manager for a licence. The review revealed serious shortcomings with regard to combating money laundering, which led to the portfolio manager withdrawing its application for a licence and applying for the winding-up of the activities requiring a licence. In order to ensure the restoration of compliance with the law, FINMA monitored the winding-up process until the activities requiring a licence were completely discontinued.

FINMA commenced enforcement proceedings against the CEO of a bank because it came to light that he may have breached regulatory provisions in connection with a previous role as a person providing a guarantee for irreproachable business conduct. The bank went on to suspend him and terminated the employment relationship. Given that the CEO no longer performed a role requiring him to guarantee irreproachable business conduct and no further regulatory measures were required to be taken, FINMA cancelled the enforcement proceedings. Compliance with regulatory objectives is ensured as FINMA will review the CEO’s irreproachable business conduct in the specific case in the event of a future employment of the CEO in a position that requires them to provide a guarantee of such conduct or in the event of a qualifying holding in an institution supervised by FINMA.

In the year under review, there were numerous proceedings due to shortcomings in combating money laundering, in particular due to an unclear risk policy or non-compliance. This concerned several banks. One institution was found to have shortcomings in relation to anti-money laundering due diligence obligations and the reporting of suspected money laundering. FINMA also found the compliance and risk culture to be lacking at this institution and ordered the development of a concept to strengthen compliance, a review of business relationships, the strengthening of the board of directors and executive board in the area of risk management and compliance as well as the disgorgement of illegally generated profits.

In its judgment of 22 May 2025, the Federal Administrative Court confirmed a FINMA ruling according to which a securities dealer (today: securities firm) and its principal shareholder committed a serious breach of their obligations of loyalty, due diligence and information towards their clients in accordance with the old version of the Stock Exchange Act. In this context, they also violated their organisational obligations. As part of its asset management activities for various foundations, the securities dealer had invested an above-average amount in an investment fund it had managed itself for several years. In addition, either the principal shareholder or an affiliated group company had a seat on the board of trustees of the foundations concerned. However, the court partially overturned the measures ordered by FINMA. The decision was not yet legally binding as at the end of 2025. 

FINMA filed a criminal complaint against a bank and, in this context, submitted documents to the Federal Department of Finance (FDF) as the prosecuting authority, in particular the rulings on which the criminal complaint was based and investigation reports. The bank responded by claiming that a large part of the transmitted information should not have been submitted to the FDF due to a lack of “necessity”. In its judgment of 13 March 2025, the Federal Administrative Court confirmed that FINMA had acted correctly when transmitting the documents. In the court’s view, it is not FINMA’s task to apply and examine in detail provisions under criminal law. The court held, in particular, that it is not necessary for all individual details disclosed by FINMA to the FDF to prove to be indispensable. 

FINMA and SECO are responsible for enforcing and implementing international sanctions in Switzerland, whereby SECO is responsible for executing the sanctions, and FINMA defines and implements its expectations in terms of effective sanction management. Given the increasing number of sanctions and restrictions both in Switzerland and at a supranational and international level, supervised institutions and individuals are exposed to a higher risk with regard to compliance with such rules on sanctions. This particularly affects banking institutions that carry out asset management transactions for foreign clients. The implementation of this range of sanctions is a complex task, but one that the supervised institutions and individuals are obliged to undertake. One of the greatest risks lies in the circumvention of the various rules on sanctions. Now as before, the consequences of potential violations are serious and can have considerable ramifications for the supervised institution or individual. Depending on the rule that was not complied with, the activities of the supervised entity or individual may subsequently be partially or completely impeded.

In the year under review, FINMA examined in particular the appropriateness of checks and processes, resources, training, culture, asset freezes and reporting obligations as well as compliance with the applicable legislation on combating money laundering and terrorist financing. Where necessary, it implemented suitable supervisory measures to restore the legal order.

As in previous years, FINMA provided administrative assistance in international enforcement proceedings. The number of requests for administrative assistance received by FINMA from international authorities remains stable and consistently high each year. The large number of requests concerns mainly “fit and proper” enquiries relating to proper business conduct and requests for information in connection with international market abuse investigations (insider trading, market manipulation). In a smaller number of instances, FINMA itself requested administrative assistance from international authorities.

In the year under review, FINMA conducted a total of 40 proceedings against legal entities and individuals who were carrying out unauthorised activities in the financial market. Of these, 14 proceedings were concluded, involving client assets totalling around CHF 94 million. FINMA issued 11 public cease-and-desist orders against individuals. The published collection of its enforcement rulings also contains case reports on unauthorised financial market providers.