Fortune managers are unhappy with the surveillance they are the subject of. Live by some as ineffective, formalist and expensive, the new system in place since January 2020 is supervised by Finma, but daily surveillance is entrusted to five surveillance organizations (OS) created for the occasion. Before now having a license to exercise, independent makeshift managers (GFI) are also required to join mediation bodies, for the settlement of conflicts with customers. Several representatives of the sector sound the alarm.
The fears are even existential, according to certain actors, who have been having the reduction in the number of GFIs since the entry into force of the laws which define this new regime, the LSFIN and Lefin (laws on services and financial establishments), more than 5 years ago. Before the change of system, FINMA had identified 2589 management companies and trusted which would have needed an authorization to continue their activity (important transitional deadlines were planned). To date, 1136 GFI have received their sesame. The market would therefore have lost more than 40% of its players.
Fear of a massacre
The hecatombe could continue, worries a representative of the Access group, which brings together around twenty GFI Romands. “The new diet pushes excellence, but this surveillance on different floors is ineffective and costly. It generates a disproportionate administrative burden which ultimately diverts the manager from his true activity, which must be to take care of his customers, ”says François Meylan, GFI based in Morges (VD) and member of the access management.
For more than a year, Access has shared its fears with Finma and the Federal Finance Department. Exchanges have taken place, more to explain the new system (which applies to trustees) than to make it evolve.
In practice, independent management companies must be better structured than before, with documented processes. On a daily basis, “we must fill repetitive and inappropriate questionnaires because designed for banks, not SMEs”, details François Meylan as an example.
Said “prudential”, the current surveillance of GFIs is much more extensive than that practiced before, limited to compliance with the legislation in force on money laundering and the obligation of diligence, advances for its part, which has answered our questions at length. The elements to be audited are therefore much more numerous than before, specifies the supervisory authority for the financial markets.
No sorting in the market, says the market
Observers suspect Finma from using the new regime to clean up the independent management market, that is to say, limit the number of its actors by eliminating the smallest. A vision vigorously denied by the gendarme of finance, which underlines that the microentreprises also can fulfill the increased legal requirements of the Lefin and the LSFIN, and therefore obtain an authorization to exercise. Most GFIs having received the license are anonymous companies using less than three people at full time. “Our approach is based on the risks specific to each establishment, with proportional surveillance, we therefore do not carry out a sanitation of the market,” replied Finma.
The cost question is also central to this file. Those of the activity itself took the elevator. The audit costs are higher and the GFIs now use much more for external providers, for example specialized in risk management and compliance, because the new diet establishes a separation of control functions and those that generate income. For small structures that do not have the means to hire a risk official or “compliance”, subcontracting to external specialists is the only option.
Cost inflation
Then there is surveillance. Between the costs of the finma and those of the OS, the invoice can exceed 10,000 francs per year for certain GFIs, was in mid-July the ASG, the largest professional association in the sector. With also an inflation deemed alarming: for 2025, the finma monitoring tax is an average of 6,484 francs per management company, against 3148 in 2023, according to ASG.
These higher costs are the logical consequence of the larger surveillance now practiced in Switzerland, still answers Finma, which specifies that most of the charges is devoted to personnel loads and that its tax should drop in the future.
Payment of the Finma tax resumes a pyramidal logic. Finma calculates (and publishes) its costs for its various activities and the emoluments it charges for each of them. Regarding the GFIs and the authorized trustees, the difference between these two amounts is then billed in bones in proportion to the number of companies they supervise.
“Each bone is free to decide how it distributes these costs billed by Finma between the societies it monitors. With us, he is divided by the number of entities, “recalls Philippe Cornebise, director of Som-Fit, a Geneva bone who also acts as an OAR (the structures responsible for monitoring respect for the laundering law by other actors such as trustees or single family offices).
Regarding bone surveillance costs, there also several models coexist, some invoicing in time devoted to each establishment or different criteria, others according to fixed emoluments.
The little ones do not want to pay for the big ones
The distribution of the Finma tax according to the number of GFIs is deemed inequitable by certain players in the sector, the little ones feeling to pay for adults. “In reality, the difficulty of surveillance is not linked to size; Small structures can have complex activities, be in permanent changes or use sophisticated products that require further supervision, “continues Philippe Cornebise, of Som-Fit, which monitors nearly 450 companies in total with workforce between eight and nine full-time equivalents.
The costs linked to authorizations are on the contrary charged individually to the companies concerned, but there too with a feeling of opacity. A GFI explained to us that it has requested a specific count for the bill of nearly 8,000 francs linked to obtaining the license. By insisting a little, he obtains to be able to receive it, but it will be paying. Starting, he renounces: “This lack of transparency is shocking from an authority which also requires us total transparency on our companies, our employees, our personal accounts and even those of our children!”, He denounces.
On the principle, supervised financial intermediaries must pay the costs generated, specifies Finma. These include finma charges for the authorization and monitoring of the five OS as well as for authorization, intensive surveillance and the procedure for the undergrading of wealth managers and trustees, which are not already covered by emoluments. “However, it is not always possible to attribute and attribute the charges to a specific establishment,” specifies the authority. The enhancement corresponds to the measures that finma orders the companies to set up to rectify a situation.
A GFI cannot legally challenge the costs which are directly billed to it; Only the bones can, “but to our knowledge, none did, given the small chances of success”, notes the ASG.
System in place … for the moment
A solution to this general discomfort would be to return to the previous supervision regime, by removing bones, but keeping the monitoring wider than that of money laundering questions, suggests the Access group, founded in 2014. The current system is defined by the LSFIN and Lefin laws, and as long as they are in force, it will not evolve, have replied several connoisseurs of the sector.
Same bell sound on the side of Finma, which adds, however, that “in practice, the implementation of the surveillance system at two newly created, unique in its kind, is quite complex and difficult”. In authorized circles, we hear, however, that Finma would not support the current system bite and that it could evolve one day.
