FSB, IAIS, CPMI and the BIS Innovation Hub — conclusion

Conclusion

The Basel Process has turned the city into the centre of a network of committees and associations that shape the regulation of banks, insurers, deposit insurers, payment systems and financial market infrastructures across the world. The Financial Stability Board, created in 2009 on the foundations of the Financial Stability Forum of 1999 and organised since 2013 as an association under Swiss law, coordinates this network on behalf of the G20. Its Key Attributes of Effective Resolution Regimes, its list of global systemically important banks, its peer reviews, its work on non-bank financial intermediation and its framework for crypto-asset activities have become reference points for national legislators, including in Switzerland. The IAIS, with its Insurance Core Principles, ComFrame, the Insurance Capital Standard and the Holistic Framework, performs a comparable role for insurance, while IADI sets the standards for deposit protection. The CPMI, together with IOSCO in Madrid, has defined the principles for financial market infrastructures and supports the G20 programme for cross-border payments. The Markets Committee, the CGFS, the Irving Fisher Committee, the Financial Stability Institute and the Central Bank Governance Group complete this machinery, to which the BIS Innovation Hub has added a laboratory for new technology, with a Swiss centre that has influenced the SNB's own work on wholesale central bank money.

These bodies combine technical authority with legal informality. Although their standards bind nobody in law, they are implemented almost everywhere. Their legitimacy rests on expertise, transparency and the accountability of their national members. For Basel, they constitute a form of soft power that rests on the presence in the city of the people who write the rules. The next chapter examines how the name of the city has become a brand of global governance beyond finance, through the Basel Institute on Governance and the Basel Convention on hazardous wastes.

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

Rechtsanwalt/Attorney-at-Law

I am a Swiss attorney-at-law and also admitted as a solicitor in Hong Kong and in England & Wales, with almost 25 years of experience.

Together with my multilingual team, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian and French native speakers, I advise companies and their owners from around the world on the full range of banking, corporate, commercial and tax law matters in Switzerland, including international tax planning, fiduciary services, and legal family office services including immigration & relocation or real estate investments. My practice has a particular focus on clients from growth and frontier markets in Greater China, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and I equally advise clients from Europe and North America. Through an affiliated Swiss trust company, we also take care of the incorporation and ongoing administration of their companies and other structures, including accounting, tax returns and corporate secretarial services, and I serve as a professional director where required. With the support of a network of first-class cooperation partners, I also implement solutions worldwide.

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FSB, IAIS, CPMI and the BIS Innovation Hub — conclusion

Conclusion

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