The Swiss parliament has created a new licensing category for FinTech companies. Like all financial intermediaries, these companies are subject to the Anti-Money Laundering Act. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority has now published an update of the FINMA Anti-Money-Laundering Ordinance, which sets out 'due diligence' requirements.

The new licensing category that the Swiss Parliament has created in Article 1b Banking Act is known as "the FinTech licence." From January onwards, any institution with this licence will be allowed to accept public deposits of up to SFr100 million as long as it does not invest or pay interest on them. However, like all other financial intermediaries, they are subject to the Anti-Money-Laundering Act. The changes will come into effect on New Year's Day.

As a rule, all financial institutions are subject to similar AML rules. However, as the changes to the Banking Act will affect smaller institutions more than others, FINMA is relaxing its rules a little for such low-risk institutions with low gross revenues.