Terms and conditions

Limitation of liability

Although every care has been taken by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA (hereinafter FINMA) to ensure the accuracy of the information published, no warranty can be given in respect of the accuracy, reliability, up-to-dateness or completeness of this information. In particular, statements relating to legal issues do not constitute legally binding information or opinions on the part of FINMA.

FINMA reserves the right to alter or remove the content, in full or in part, without prior notice.

In no event will FINMA be liable for any loss or damage of a material or immaterial nature arising from access to, use or non-use of published information, or from misuse of the connection or technical faults.

Links

Links to third-party websites lie outside the scope of responsibility of FINMA. Access and use of such websites occurs entirely at the user’s own risk. FINMA expressly states that it has no influence whatsoever over the content of any linked site. Responsibility for information and services of linked sites rests entirely with the relevant third parties.

No liability of any kind is assumed for such websites.

Copyright

Information on FINMA’s website is accessible to the public. Downloading or copying of texts, illustrations, photos or any other data does not entail any transfer of rights on the content.

Copyright and any other rights relating to texts, illustrations, photos or any other data available on the FINMA website are the exclusive property of FINMA or of any other expressly mentioned owners. Any reproduction requires the prior written consent of the copyright holder.

Using the FINMA logo

Using and reproducing the FINMA logo (including the design) is not permitted.

Privacy notice

General information

Your data are safe in our hands. FINMA only collects the personal data that it needs to fulfil its tasks (data economy). Stored data are carefully managed and protected against any form of abuse.

Under Article 13 of the Swiss Federal Constitution and under federal data protection law, everyone is entitled to have their privacy protected and to have their personal data protected from abuse. FINMA complies with these provisions on its website and when providing its web services.

Scope of application

This privacy notice applies to the FINMA website in the ‘finma.ch’ domain, to web services operated by third parties on behalf of FINMA and to the personal data collected via these websites. This privacy notice may be amended at any time without prior notice. Where the FINMA website or pages operated on its behalf offer links to the websites of other providers, the privacy information and policies of those providers apply to their own pages.

Individual web services operated by third parties on behalf of FINMA have their own or additional data protection provisions that cover their specific use.

Links

FINMA has no influence over external pages to which it provides links, nor over external pages that provide links to FINMA pages. Accordingly, FINMA provides no guarantee in relation to such pages that the information they contain is accurate or that they are free of malware (such as viruses). Responsibility for the information and services provided on linked web pages or web services are entirely the responsibility of the third party concerned. FINMA accepts no responsibility or liability for such web pages or web services.

What happens to your data when you use the FINMA website and services?

a) Retention and erasure

The processing of personal data is limited to the data that are required to provide a properly functioning website or service and user-friendly content and services, or to the data that you have actively made available to us. The personal data that we collect are only retained for as long as they are needed in order to fulfil the purpose concerned. Certain data may be retained for longer in order to meet statutory requirements or other obligations.

b) Data stored when completing a form

If you complete a form on our website (e.g. report or contact form), we process the data that you provide us to the extent that this is required to fulfil the purpose of processing or to deal with your request. Normally any information we receive is provided on a voluntary basis. Obligatory fields are only marked as such if the information is required in order to fulfil our statutory duty or to deal with your request or enquiry. These data are erased when the statutory retention period expires at the latest.

c) Data stored for the purpose of using MyFINMA functions

If you create a personal MyFINMA login in order to subscribe to the FINMA news service, to be notified of updates to documents or to permanently save your personal download list (MyFINMA functions) the following data will be stored: first name, surname, email address, password (encrypted) and the language (all obligatory) as well as user-specific subscriptions and download list settings (optional). The data are stored directly in the content management system used. Your personal data related to your MyFINMA account will be erased immediately if you are no longer registered.

d) Data stored for the purpose of web analytics and for operating purposes

If you access FINMA’s website and services, the following data may be stored: IP address, anonymised geolocation (if enabled in the browser), date and time, browser language, pages visited as well as the time of the visit and number of page visits, files downloaded and links accessed, browser version and operating system used, data for tracking email and social media campaigns (access channel used). These data are evaluated by web analytics tools (see below). FINMA does this in order to continuously improve its methods of communication and its website. The IP address is obscured by means of anonymisation (2 bytes masking) during web analytics, ensuring that personal data protection is fully taken into account. These data may also be analysed in order to ensure operations (e.g. by monitoring capacities).

Web analytics tools: FINMA uses the Matomo software solution for web analytics not related to specific persons. Matomo is operated as a managed service by a Swiss provider. Tracking is carried out using JavaScript within the domain (finma.ch) and is completely under FINMA’s control.

The stored data are under FINMA’s control and remain in Switzerland. The data are used exclusively for the specified purposes; they are not shared or combined with other data records.

e) Cookies

Cookies are used on various FINMA pages in order to make visiting the website and services attractive and to allow certain functions to be used. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer. Most of the cookies used (session cookies) are deleted from your hard disk at the end of the browser session. Other cookies remain on your computer and enable you to be recognised again when you make your next visit (permanent cookies).

You can stop cookies from being stored on your browser by restricting or deactivating the storage and reading of cookies. Please note that you will not be able to use certain functions of the website and services without enabling cookies.

f) Social networks and other third-party services

FINMA manages miscellaneous accounts and profiles on social networks (including Twitter, LinkedIn and Xing) and its own Vimeo channel. These pages and services are offered and operated by third parties. All of these pages have their own data protection provisions.

In addition, third-party services, such as those provided by Twitter, Vimeo etc., are directly embedded into the FINMA website. These providers also use cookies, etc. When they use third-party services on the FINMA website, the user’s data are automatically transmitted to these companies. In such cases, the data protection provisions of the provider concerned expressly apply. Users must be aware that data are collected via these services and may also be passed on to third parties. If users also have an account with the service concerned, the operator may assign the information transmitted directly to the personal account concerned.

FINMA has no influence over the collection of data or their further use by these operators. FINMA has no knowledge of how much data they store, where they store the data and for how long, the extent to which they comply with duties to erase data, the analyses they make of the data, the links they make to the data and to whom they pass on the data.

The most important third-party services FINMA uses are:

Vimeo: As soon as you call up a FINMA webpage that has a Vimeo video embedded in it, a connection is established with the Vimeo servers, and plug-ins from Vimeo (Vimeo, Inc., 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA) are used from time to time. Vimeo receives information on which page was visited from which IP address. Information about how user data are handled can be found in the Vimeo privacy policy and cookie policy.

Twitter: Twitter, Inc., 1355 Market Street, Suite 900 San Francisco, CA 94103. Information about how user data are handled can be found in the Twitter privacy policy and cookie policy.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Attn: Legal Dept. (Privacy Policy and User Agreement), Wilton Plaza, Wilton Place, Dublin 2, Ireland. Information about how user data are handled can be found in the LinkedIn privacy policy and cookie policy.

Xing: New Work SE, Dammtorstraße 30, 20354 Hamburg, Germany. Information about how user data are handled can be found in the Xing privacy policy.

Google reCaptcha: Under the name reCaptcha, Google LLC operates services that may recognise and prevent automated actions on websites. Google's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Your rights

You have the right to request information on the processing of your personal data by FINMA at any time free of charge. Any request for information should be sent in writing, signed and accompanied by a copy of an identity document (passport or ID card) to: Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA, Legal and Compliance, Laupenstrasse 27, 3003 Bern. You may have further statutory rights, such as the right to have data erased or corrected, to have data processing restricted and to have data transmitted.

Collecting and storing data in log files is absolutely essential for the provision and operation of our website and services. As a result, users of our website and services have no right to object in this respect.

Data security

Website and web services: When you visit our website and web services, FINMA uses encrypted data communication based on TLS in conjunction with the highest encryption level supported by your browser. You can see whether a page on the website is being transmitted in encrypted form by checking whether the lock symbol displayed in the address bar of your browser is closed.

General data processing: In addition, FINMA uses suitable technical and organisational security measures in its data processing in order to protect your data against accidental or wilful manipulation, partial or complete loss, destruction or unauthorised access by third parties. FINMA’s security measures correspond to the current state of the art.

Operation and external partners

The web servers that are used to operate the website and services are technically maintained in Switzerland by Swiss providers. Individual services, e.g. HR recruiting, may also be provided by external partners.

Name of the data controller and contact details of the data protection advisor in accordance with data protection legislation

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA is responsible for the data processing described here. If you have any questions about data processing or if you believe that FINMA may be infringing your rights by processing your personal data, please contact the Legal and Compliance group, FINMA’s data protection advisor, via law@finma.ch.

September 2023