Supervision of financial market infrastructures

Through its supervision of Swiss financial market infrastructures, FINMA promotes a well-functioning and transparent securities and derivatives market which in turn protects financial market participants and investors.

Financial market infrastructure regulation is based on a number of laws: the Financial Market Infrastructure Act (FinMIA), the Banking Act (BA), the Stock Exchange Act (SESTA) and the National Bank Act (NBA). The relevant implementing provisions are set out in the Financial Market Infrastructure Ordinance (FinMIO), FINMA’s Financial Market Infrastructure Ordinance (FinMIO-FINMA) and the National Bank Ordinance (NBO). FINMA’s supervision of financial market infrastructures is largely based on the Financial Market Infrastructure Act (FinMIA) in conjunction with the Financial Market Infrastructure Ordinance (FinMIO).

Supervised financial market infrastructures

The services provided by financial market infrastructures (i.e. trading, clearing, settlement and securities safe keeping) form the essential backbone of an efficient and functional capital market. They also represent an essential link to international capital markets.

In accordance with the Financial Market Infrastructure Act (FinMIA), the following service providers are regarded as financial market infrastructures:

trading venues, i.e. exchanges or multilateral trading facilities (FinMIA, Art. 26)
central counterparties (FinMIA, Art. 48)
central securities depositories (FinMIA, Art. 61)
trade repositories (FinMIA, Art. 74)
payment systems (FinMIA, Art. 81).

Supervision of foreign financial market infrastructures

Foreign financial market infrastructures recognised by FINMA are supervised by the competent foreign supervisory authority. FINMA exchanges information with these authorities if needed.