Bär & Karrer

The worst economic disaster since the great depression of 1929 took American and European banks by storm in 2008. The US, EU and Russia, among others, had to step in to save some of their banks from bankruptcy. Even certain German banks, symbols of the country's strength and prosperity, were on the verge of collapsing. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this briefing is to provide a high-level summary of the mechanisms in place to cope with the bankruptcy of a foreign bank in Switzerland.

On July 5 2017, the Swiss Federal Council (Bundesrat) amended the Swiss Federal Banking Ordinance to ease the Swiss regulatory framework for providers of innovative financial technologies (fintech).

On January 1 2017, the Swiss domestic legislation on the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) entered into force and the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (SFTA) published guidelines specifying the crucial aspects of the legislation for practical use. Under the AEOI, Swiss financial institutions (FI) will collect and exchange relevant financial information on 'reported persons' with Switzerland's partner states. By the same token, Switzerland will receive data collected on Swiss resident reported persons from Switzerland's partner states. The exchanged information will be used for domestic taxation purposes in the state of residence of the reported persons.