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🇨🇭Switzerland · Non-EU

Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority

FINMA · Financial supervisory authority
Bernwww.finma.ch
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FY2025 · as of 31 December 2025Published figures unless marked

Employees698avg FTE, permanent + temporary
Annual budgetCHF 172m (~€185m)operating costs
Supervised entitiesSee the breakdown belowFY2025

Overview

FINMA is Switzerland's integrated financial market supervisor, overseeing banks, insurers, financial market infrastructures and asset managers from Bern — including UBS, the country's sole remaining global systemically important bank. It runs a distinctive dual-track model: alongside its own supervision, it mandates private audit firms as an extended arm, though in 2025 it began shifting toward more of its own on-site inspections — 176 across banks, insurance and asset management, 42 of them at UBS alone. It licensed Switzerland's first DLT trading facility during the year and concluded 55 enforcement proceedings, while adding a record 300-plus entries to its public warning list. Everything below is FINMA's own data, from its FY2025 annual report.

Regulated sectors

7
BanksInsurance companiesAsset managersInvestment firmsSecurities marketsCrypto-asset service providersMarket infrastructure

Figures as published by Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority for FY2025. Source: FINMA Annual Report 2025 (Published 21 April 2026). Data as of 31 December 2025. Supplementary: FINMA annual media conference 2026 — press release (21 Apr 2026).

Leadership

2
Marlene Amstad

Chair of the Board of Directorssince 2021

Stefan Walter

Chief Executive Officersince 2024

Full board

Organisation (FY2025)

Staff — average FTE (permanent + temporary)
6982024: 634 — reorganised internally in spring 2025 to intensify forward-looking supervision
Staff — average permanent FTE
6172024: 554
Approved headcount limit
734.7 permanent FTE+121.1 vs 2024's 613.6; most new roles filled by year-end
Operating costs
CHF 172m (~€185m)2024: CHF 154m; fully covered by supervisory fees and levies — no taxpayer funding
Staff turnover
6.8%Within FINMA's 6–10% target range
Women in workforce
43.2%

Supervisory activity 2025

On-site inspections
176113 banks (42 at UBS) · 43 insurers · 20 asset management
Enforcement proceedings concluded
55Calendar-year basis; FINMA has no power to impose fines
Investigations into potentially unauthorised activity
~450
Estimate
New warning-list entries
300+Record high
Enforcement proceedings launched at banks (from deep dives)
15
Institution-specific capital add-ons imposed
14 cases
Business-activity restrictions incl. takeover bans
7 cases
Insurance intermediaries supervised
~10,000Registered intermediaries — separate from prudentially supervised institutions
Estimate
Investigations into insurance intermediaries
271

Notable 2025

First DLT trading facility licensed
A first under the Swiss DLT Act (2021) — Switzerland's inaugural DLT trading facility authorisation.
No fining power
FINMA has publicly advocated for fining powers, a senior-managers accountability regime, and the right to communicate on concluded proceedings — in line with the Federal Council's TBTF report and parliamentary recommendations after the Credit Suisse crisis.
Dual audit-firm model shifting
FINMA is deliberately conducting more of its own inspections and deploying private audit firms on a more risk-based footing — new standardised ICT/BCM/cyber reporting agreed with EXPERTsuisse from 2026.
Compliance restored in ~3 months
In roughly 90% of enforcement investigations, compliance is restored within about three months.
Cyber concentration risk
Nearly half of all cyberattacks reported by supervised institutions in 2025 targeted service providers and outsourcing partners.

No sectoral licences, an activity-based ladder.Switzerland has no equivalent of PSD2, EMD, or MiCA. Payment and crypto businesses are regulated by what they do: firms that do not hold client funds in a deposit-like way are financial intermediaries under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, supervised via membership of a FINMA-recognised Self-Regulatory Organisation (SRO) such as VQF or PolyReg, often without any FINMA licence at all. Holding public funds moves a firm up the ladder: the fintech licence (Banking Act Art. 1b, deposits up to CHF 100M (~€106M), no interest paid) or a full banking licence. Trading venues for tokenised securities require a DLT trading facility licence under the FMIA, token classification follows FINMA's payment / utility / asset taxonomy, and stablecoins are assessed case by case under FINMA's 2019 guidance. Systemically important payment systems are overseen by the Swiss National Bank.

Key legislation

4
FINMASA

Financial Market Supervision Act — statutory objectives: protection of creditors, investors and policyholders; proper functioning of markets

Banking Act (BankA)

Banking

FinIA / FinSA

Investment services + financial market infrastructure

DLT Act 2021

Distributed ledger / crypto infrastructure

Registers, portals and publications

Application portals

FINMA portal

Recent publications

FINMA Annual Report 20252026-04-21
Data as of 31 December 2025 · Source: www.finma.ch + ComplyBridge researchActivity Index methodology →