According to Art. 28 FinSA, client advisors of domestic financial service providers who are not supervised in accordance with Art. 3 FINMASA and client advisors of foreign financial service providers may only exercise their activities in Switzerland if they are entered in a register of advisors. The advisor register is maintained by a registration office in accordance with Art. 31 FinSA. It requires FINMA approval for its activities.

Client advisors, i.e. natural persons who provide financial services on behalf of a financial service provider or themselves as financial service providers – for example in the form of the distribution of funds in the Swiss market – must therefore be entered in a register of advisors under the FinSA, which came into force on 1 January 2020. The obligation to register applies even to client advisors of foreign financial service providers who are part of a group supervised by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA, provided they do not offer their financial services in Switzerland exclusively to professional or institutional clients. The entry in the advisor register must be made before financial services are provided in Switzerland or to clients domiciled in Switzerland. The wording of the FinSA suggests that this obligation applies to every client who is in Switzerland.

The prerequisites for entry in the advisor register are sufficient knowledge of the rules of conduct under FinSA, the specialist knowledge required for the business activity, the conclusion of a professional liability insurance policy or the existence of an equivalent security, connection to an ombudsman, no entry due to criminal offences against assets under the Swiss Penal Code and no ban on activity or profession imposed by FINMA. The advisor register will have a certain discretion as to whether a client advisor has sufficient knowledge of the rules of conduct under FinSA and the specialist knowledge required for the activity. When registering, the client advisor will therefore have to prove, by means of documents and possibly also on the basis of an oral interview, that he possesses the necessary knowledge and skills.

Client advisors shall be entered in the Advisor Register if they provide evidence that they:

The Register of Advisors shall publish the following information on the client advisors:

BX Swiss became the first registration office to be authorised by FINMA as of 20 July 2020. Pursuant to Art. 28 para. 1 FinSA, client advisors who are subject to the registration obligation may only exercise their activity in Switzerland if they are registered in a Client Advisor Register.