Legislation and Regulators of Cryptocurrencies in Switzerland
Switzerland steadily remains a dream jurisdiction for many entrepreneurs. That is reasonable as the country offers very favorable conditions for doing business and is very open to new ideas.
Switzerland steadily remains a dream jurisdiction for many entrepreneurs. That is reasonable as the country offers very favorable conditions for doing business and is very open to new ideas. At the same time, it has a very high culture of doing business that has been formed, among others, thanks to very strict compliance requirements.
Switzerland is open to the crypto business. But, it also has some requirements for it to follow. Experienced Prifinance attorneys have prepared a brief guide for you about all the matters of handling the crypto business in Switzerland, including getting a crypto exchange license in Switzerland. Here are the starting points to know about the local legal and regulatory standards.
Basic Legal and Regulatory Principles Applied to Crypto Industry in Switzerland
The core regulatory points that have actually led to forming a comfortable business environment in Switzerland are the emphasis on anti-money laundering prevention and ensuring the stability of a business. These objectives should be reached by a business through a set of measures, including these ones:
- having a sufficient amount of capital at disposal;
- hiring professional compliance and technical staff whose competencies can be verified;
- developing and following sufficient policies to ensure stable and transparent operation of a crypto trading project (KYC, monitoring, record-keeping, reporting, training, etc.);
- having enough IT and technical resources to ensure the stable operation of a crypto trading or other project and tracking of all the operations carried out through it;
- providing the customers with explicit details about the nuances of a crypto project operation and the nature of products offered there (all policies have to be clear and publicly available);
- ensuring additional checks for the supposedly suspicious transactions;
- submitting the regular and additional reports to the FINMA (the need of submitting additional reports may exist, for instance, in the cases of transactions where money laundering allegedly may be in place).
The main regulator in Switzerland is the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) – it will also deal with cryptocurrency service providers. The FINMA supports the regulatory and licensing legislation with its guides. This authority is responsible for market monitoring and can impose very strict sanctions for possible non-compliance. At the same time, if an entrepreneur has any issues with choosing the right type of license, the FINMA can even help with selecting the most appropriate type of license. That is one of the examples of the strict but loyal approach to doing business that is implemented in Switzerland.
How Prifinance Attorneys Can Facilitate You
If your current objective is to set up your crypto trading or another project in Switzerland, Prifinance attorneys are ready to discuss and guide you while covering all the nuances of legal and regulatory requirements in Switzerland. Attorneys are ready to help you through these legal services, among others:
- helping with the incorporation of a new business entity for the purpose of starting a crypto project in Switzerland;
- applying and obtaining a license for particular operations related to virtual assets;
- exploring and addressing appropriately all the taxation nuances in Switzerland;
- facilitating the next operation of a newly-registered crypto trading or another project in Switzerland.
Forward the details of your business plan in Switzerland – obtain explicit answers and precise support at each pre- and post-registration stage from the lawyers who already have 200+ crypto projects in their portfolio.
