Client advis­ers of Swiss finan­cial ser­vice providers not sub­ject to super­vi­sion as well as of cer­tain for­eign finan­cial ser­vice providers may only car­ry out their activ­i­ty in Switzer­land if they are entered in a Reg­is­ter of Advis­ers. This reg­is­tra­tion require­ment applies in par­tic­u­lar to client advis­ers who pro­vide finan­cial ser­vices that are not in them­selves an activ­i­ty requir­ing autho­riza­tion, for instance invest­ment advice or the acqui­si­tion or dis­pos­al of finan­cial instru­ments for clients (for­mer­ly known as “dis­tri­b­u­tion”).

The Reg­is­ter of Advis­ers is main­tained by Reg­is­tra­tion Bod­ies approved by the Swiss Finan­cial Mar­ket Super­vi­so­ry Author­i­ty FIN­MA. Approved Reg­is­tra­tion Bod­ies are BX Swiss AG, Zurich, PolyReg Ser­vices GmbH, Zurich, and the Asso­ci­a­tion Romande des Inter­mé­di­aires Financiers (ARIF), Gene­va.The train­ings offered here are accept­ed by all three Reg­is­tra­tions Bodies.

The con­di­tions for reg­is­tra­tion in the Reg­is­ter of Advis­ers are met by any­one who can pro­vide the fol­low­ing evidence:

• the exis­tence of a pro­fes­sion­al indem­ni­ty insur­ance or of equiv­a­lent collateral;
• affil­i­a­tion to an Ombudsman’s Office (as far as no exemp­tion applies);
• absence of exclu­sion cri­te­ria (rel­e­vant crim­i­nal con­vic­tion, activ­i­ty ban, ban on prac­tic­ing a profession);
• Exis­tence of the required knowl­edge accord­ing to art. 6 FIN­SA, i.e. (i) the pro­fes­sion­al exper­tise required to per­form the activ­i­ties and (ii) suf­fi­cient knowl­edge of the rules of con­duct set out in the FIN­SA for ren­der­ing finan­cial ser­vices. There­by, pro­fes­sion­al exper­tise and knowl­edge of the rules of con­duct must be evi­denced separately.

Ave­laLaw AG will be pleased to assist you if you are in doubt whether or not you are sub­ject to the duty to reg­is­ter as well as with the reg­is­tra­tion itself.