The legacy of 1934 in today’s supervision

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The law of 1934 has been revised many times, but it still forms the foundation of Swiss banking supervision. Several of its principles survive: the prior licensing of banks, capital and liquidity requirements, auditing by licensed audit firms, supervision by a federal authority and the criminal-law protection of professional secrecy.

Other elements have been added over the decades. Deposit insurance now protects depositors up to a certain amount in the event of a bank’s bankruptcy.¹ The rules on systemically important banks impose enhanced requirements on the largest institutions. The international Basel standards, transposed into Swiss law, have profoundly altered the capital and liquidity requirements.² The Fondation Genève Place Financière, moreover, lists the entry into force of the final version of Basel III on 1 January 2025 among the regulatory challenges facing the financial centre.³

Contemporary supervision remains marked by the spirit of 1934: it relies on audit firms, it respects a certain autonomy of the institutions and it seeks to preserve the competitiveness of the financial centre. The Credit Suisse crisis of 2023 revived the debate on the intensity of this supervision and on the powers of the authority. Part E will examine these developments.

Notes

Privileged and insured deposits up to CHF 100,000 per client and per bank, with, since 1 January 2023, payout within seven working days and a system ceiling of 1.6 per cent of insured deposits; esisuisse, “Changements à compter de 2023”, esisuisse.ch (accessed September 2026). ↩
Federal Council, press release of 29 November 2023, “La modification de l’ordonnance sur les fonds propres en vue de la mise en œuvre du dispositif finalisé de Bâle III entrera en vigueur en 2025” (admin.ch): amendment to the Capital Adequacy Ordinance adopted on 29 November 2023, incorporating “the finalised Basel III framework adopted by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision”, in force on 1 January 2025. ↩
Fondation Genève Place Financière, 2025 economic survey, presented in Allnews, 16 October 2025. ↩

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 September 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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The legacy of 1934 in today’s supervision

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