Supervisory organisations and the numbers of the transition

A two-tier supervision

The legislature did not want FINMA to supervise some two thousand small firms directly. It therefore created a new type of private body, the supervisory organisation (organismo di vigilanza, OV, in Italian; Aufsichtsorganisation, AO, in German), licensed and supervised by FINMA under Article 43a FINMASA. FINMA grants the licence to the portfolio manager or trustee in consultation with the supervisory organisation chosen by the applicant. The supervisory organisation then conducts the ongoing supervision, which covers compliance with FinIA, FinSA and the Anti-Money Laundering Act. FINMA remains responsible for enforcement, and if a supervisory organisation finds serious violations it reports them to FINMA, which may withdraw the licence or take other measures. FINMA supervises the supervisory organisations themselves.¹ Where no supervisory organisation is available, or where a portfolio manager belongs to a financial group, FINMA supervises directly (Art. 61 para. 4 FinIA).² FINMA's list of portfolio managers and trustees it supervises directly as domestic group companies comprised 89 entities in October 2026, four of them in Ticino.³

The supervisory organisations finance themselves through fees charged to the supervised firms. They may carry out the audits themselves or entrust them to audit firms licensed by the Federal Audit Oversight Authority, and the supervised firms owe them information and reports on all facts relevant to supervision. The model resembles the self-regulatory organisations of anti-money laundering law, which Swiss law has used since 1998, but the supervisory organisations exercise a public function under a FINMA licence. Their independence is prescribed by statute: a majority of the persons charged with administration, the members of the management board and the persons entrusted with supervision must all be independent of the supervised firms, even though several organisations emerged from professional associations of the supervised trades.⁴

The five organisations of 2020

FINMA licensed the first two supervisory organisations on 6 July 2020: the Organisme de Surveillance des Instituts Financiers (OSIF) in Geneva and the Organisation de Surveillance Financière (OSFIN) in Neuchâtel.⁵ The Organisme de Surveillance pour Intermédiaires Financiers & Trustees (SO-FIT) in Geneva followed on 11 August 2020 and FINcontrol Suisse AG in Zug on 29 September 2020.⁶ With the licensing of AOOS – Schweizerische Aktiengesellschaft für Aufsicht in Zurich, announced on 28 October 2020, FINMA had licensed five supervisory organisations and declared the preparatory phase complete.⁷ FINcontrol Suisse had emerged from the self-regulatory organisation VQF, and AOOS from the asset managers' association VSV.⁸

None of the five supervisory organisations had its seat in Ticino. For Lugano firms this meant that the ongoing supervision, previously exercised in the case of money laundering by a local self-regulatory organisation and in the case of professional conduct by the cantonal authority in Bellinzona, moved to organisations in Geneva, Neuchâtel, Zug and Zurich. Whether a supervisory organisation can deal with a firm in Italian, and how well its staff understand the Italian client base and its tax history, has therefore become one of the criteria by which Lugano firms choose among them.

Notes

1. FINMA, "FINMA approves merger of two supervisory organisations", 11 December 2025, https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2025/12/20251211-meldung-ao-fusion/ (describing the functions of the supervisory organisations and of FINMA); Federal Act on the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority of 22 June 2007 (FINMASA), SR 956.1, Art. 43a ff., https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/en-it/9/95/956.1-index.html. ↩
2. FinIA (above), Art. 61. ↩
3. FINMA, List of portfolio managers and trustees licensed and supervised by FINMA (domestic group companies under the FinIA), as at 4 October 2026, https://www.finma.ch/en/~/media/finma/dokumente/bewilligungstraeger/pdf/grfinig.pdf (total 89; entities in Lugano and Stabio). ↩
4. FINMASA (above), Art. 43e (guarantee of irreproachable business conduct and independence), Art. 43f (funding from contributions of the supervised persons), Art. 43k (audits by the supervisory organisation or by an audit firm licensed by the Federal Audit Oversight Authority) and Art. 43l (duty to provide information and to report), https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/en-it/9/95/956.1-index.html. ↩
5. FINMA, press release of 7 July 2020 (above). ↩
6. "Swiss regulator authorises fourth supervisory organisation", FinanceFeeds, 2020, https://financefeeds.com/swiss-regulator-authorises-fourth-supervisory-organisation/. ↩
7. FINMA, press release of 28 October 2020 (above). ↩
8. BDO, 2 November 2021 (above). ↩

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.