News

News
2017

Significant group companies

Significant group companies are subject to FINMA's resolution remit.
In the wake of the financial crisis and the issues which emerged relating to the “too big to fail” (TBTF) problem, adjustments have been made to some of the financial market regulations. As a result, Swiss-domiciled companies that are part of banking, insurance and financial market infrastructure groups and which carry out significant functions for activities requiring authorisation (referred to as significant group companies) are now subject to the legal provisions governing their relevant industry in the event of restructuring and/or bankruptcy. If protective measures have to be imposed on a licence holder because of the risk of insolvency or serious liquidity issues, or if restructuring or bankruptcy proceedings have to be initiated, FINMA can by law exercise its authority also in respect of the licence holder's significant group companies. To the extent provided for under financial market law, FINMA has sole responsibility for imposing such measures. FINMA's unitary resolution remit – covering licence holders and significant group companies – allows for coordinated restructuring, or liquidation, making financial institutions more resilient in the event of a crisis.

For banks and financial market infrastructures, significant functions carried out by significant group companies include liquidity management, treasury, risk management, master data management, accounting, human resources, IT, trading and settlement, and legal and compliance. For insurance companies, these significant functions are the holding company function, underwriting, existing policy management, claims settlement, accounting, human resources, IT and investments.

FINMA identifies and publishes significant group companies by name as follows:

Under the general information and reporting requirements, supervised institutions must report to FINMA the outsourcing of significant functions to group companies. This also applies to any changes made to these arrangements.
Backgroundimage