Foreign market participants

Foreign participants require FINMA authorisation if they want to participate in a Swiss trading venue (Art. 40 FinMIA). The term “participant” is defined in Article 2 let. d FinMIA and includes anyone who uses financial market infrastructure services from a trading venue.

Authorisation requirements

FINMA grants authorisation to foreign participants who are not domiciled in Switzerland to participate in a Swiss trading venue under the following requirements:

• The participants are subject to appropriate regulation and supervision.
• They meet conduct, recording and reporting requirements which are equivalent to Swiss regulation. 
• They ensure that their activities are kept separate from those carried out by authorised Swiss entities.
• The competent supervisory authorities do not object to the participants’ activities in Switzerland.
• The competent supervisory authorities provide international assistance to FINMA.

If an already authorised foreign participant wants to participate in another Swiss trading venue, confirmation must be sought from the competent supervisory authority, which certifies that it has no objection to the expansion of the foreign participant’s activity in Switzerland (art. 40 para. 3 FinMIA).

Changes to licensing requirements

If an authorised participant’s circumstances change, FINMA authorisation must first be obtained before the participant can resume their activities as a foreign unsupervised market member.