Basel, 29 April 2005 – The Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) adheres to the criticism it made in its position paper on official Swiss plans to put the revised recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) into practice. In various areas the official plans go beyond what is necessary and, if implemented, would lead to even more regulations and an unnecessary weakening of Switzerland’s position as an international financial centre. The SBA calls for the plans to be reworked in consultation with financial professionals with practical experience and the Swiss Federal Banking Commission.

The SBA adheres to the criticisms expressed in its position paper on official Swiss plans to implement the revised FATF recommendations. The SBA first made its critical position public at a press conference on 10 March 2005. It goes without saying that an internationally-integrated financial centre such as Switzerland needs a comprehensive set of measures to fight money laundering. However, the official Swiss proposals to implement the revised recommendations clearly go beyond what is necessary and demand more than the FATF itself is recommending. The proposals would simply result in another wave of regulation without any accompanying increase in security and Switzerland’s position as an international financial centre would be unnecessarily weakened.

Given that the official Swiss proposals have been criticised by various quarters the SBA now expects them to be reworked in consultation with financial experts from the affected industries together with the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC). For example, classifying insider trading or price manipulation as predicate offences to money laundering is problematic because it is impossible to estimate the consequences of such a measure in view of the banks’ surveillance obligations under the SFBC’s Money Laundering Ordinance. The SBA calls for the draft plans to take this problem into account so that banks are not placed at any competitive disadvantage. Furthermore, adding professional groups such as art dealers and jewellers to those subject to the Money Laundering Act in part goes beyond the recommendations of the FATF. The “regime light” for certain new professional groups does not foresee any supervision of those belonging to these groups by self-regulatory organisations or by the Money Laundering Control Authority (MLCA). Responsibility should not be now passed on to the banks and the banks should not be burdened with surveillance duties in accordance with the SFBC’s Money Laundering Ordinance. In principle, only those professional groups whose activities have been proven to represent a money laundering risk should be placed under the Money Laundering Act. Finally, banks and their employees who report suspected money laundering to the authorities must be protected against reprisals. The SBA demands that information supplied by financial intermediaries should be forwarded on a restricted basis only. There should be no online access whatsoever to data lodged with the Money Laundering Reporting Office (MROS).

Note to the media
The speech PDF given by Urs Roth at the 10 March 2005 press conference contains additional information.

PDF Position paper (in German only)

Contacts
Thomas Sutter	James Nason
Head of Communications Switzerland	Head of International Communications
Swiss Bankers Association, Basel	Swiss Bankers Association, Basel
Tel. +41 61 295 92 06	Tel. +41 61 295 92 15
Fax +41 61 272 53 82	Fax +41 61 272 53 82
www.swissbanking.org	www.swissbanking.org