Categorisation of banks and securities firms
FINMA’s risk-oriented supervision consists of five supervisory categories. Institutions are categorised on the basis of measurable criteria, namely total assets, assets under management, privileged deposits and required capital (cf. Annex 3 of the BO).
The main features of each supervisory category are as follows:
- Category 1: extremely large, important and complex market participants. Very high risk.
- Category 2: very important, complex market participants. High risk.
- Category 3: large and complex market participants. Significant risk.
- Category 4: medium-sized market participants. Medium risk.
- Category 5: small market participants. Low risk.
Supervisory intensity
Institutions in different categories are supervised with different levels of intensity.
Those in categories 1 and 2 require greater attention in view of their importance and risk profile and are thus subject to continual and intensive or close supervision. Those in category 5, on the other hand, are supervised on the basis of quantitative indicators and only looked at more closely when they break the rules or when other extraordinary events occur.
Distribution of supervised institutions
The vast majority of supervised institutions are assigned to category 5.
