One of the leading issues with Swiss fintech laws was that the development was hindered by the Swiss requirement of fintech businesses having to receive and hold client deposits – requiring a license to do. The previous Swiss Bank Act only allowed for banks to receive and hold client deposits, which disallowed unregistered fintech companies from doing so – rendering them useless.
This law has since been reformed with the adding of a new regulation. This regulation can be found in Article 6 of paragraph 2 in the BO:
"Anyone who, over a long period of time, accepts more than 20 deposits from the public or makes call (offering) to the public to obtain them does not act in a professional capacity within the meaning of the Banking Act if they:
- a) accepts deposits from the public for a total amount of no more than 1 million francs; AND
- b) do not invest or remunerate such deposits, AND
- c) informs the depositors, in writing or by any other means allowing to establish the proof of it by a text, before these make the deposit:
1. that it is not supervised by FINMA, and
2. the deposit is not covered by the deposit guarantee."
The above is what is now allowing for Swiss fintech companies to operate.