Moti­on Grü­ter (16.3472): Risk-adju­sted deli­mi­ta­ti­on and defi­ni­ti­on of the term deposit
Not yet dis­cus­sed in the Council 

Sub­mit­ted text

The Fede­ral Coun­cil is ins­truc­ted to nar­row down and defi­ne the depo­sit con­cept from Artic­le 1 (2) of the Ban­king Act and Artic­le 2 (a) of the Ban­king Ordi­nan­ce in a risk-appro­pria­te man­ner. The cur­rent broad inter­pre­ta­ti­on by Fin­ma hin­ders inno­va­ti­ve block­chain start­ups who­se busi­ness models qua­li­fy as ban­king busi­ness wit­hout the under­ly­ing pro­tec­ti­ve con­cept of the depo­sit term requi­ring this.

Justi­fi­ca­ti­on

For the future of the Swiss finan­cial cen­ter, it is cru­cial to be at the fore­front of the latest tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments. One such tech­no­lo­gy is block­chain, as sta­ted by the Fede­ral Coun­cil in its media release of April 20, 2016. Block­chains enable irre­futa­ble pro­of of tran­sac­tions thanks to their com­ple­te and unal­tera­ble histo­ry. This would allow many tran­sac­tions to be con­duc­ted direct­ly bet­ween two con­trac­ting par­ties that pre­vious­ly requi­red an inter­me­dia­ry (e.g., payment ser­vice pro­vi­ders). The tech­no­lo­gy holds a lot of poten­ti­al, but this can only be exploi­ted if the cor­re­spon­ding inno­va­tions can be tested on the mar­ket. Switz­er­land has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to beco­me a lea­ding glo­bal loca­ti­on for block­chain startups.

One prac­ti­ce that curr­ent­ly hin­ders this is the broad inter­pre­ta­ti­on of the term depo­sit under ban­king legis­la­ti­on. This leads to many block­chain start­ups being unneces­s­a­ri­ly qua­li­fi­ed as a bank.

The con­cept of depo­sits is based on the inte­rest in pro­tec­ting depo­si­tors. Under today’s appli­ca­ti­on of the term, non-banks are also requi­red to com­ply with com­pre­hen­si­ve due dili­gence and capi­tal requi­re­ments in the mil­li­ons. This is unsa­tis­fac­to­ry for Fin­Tech startups:

1. a ban­king licen­se is not neces­sa­ry to pro­tect the cus­to­mer of the new ser­vices; and

2. No young start­up can afford a ban­king license.

The defi­ni­ti­on of depo­sits – espe­ci­al­ly with regard to the “Ban­ken­liz Light” curr­ent­ly being deve­lo­ped by Fin­ma – is to be nar­ro­wed down in such a way that only busi­ness models are cover­ed from which risks asso­cia­ted with the typi­cal ban­king busi­ness (inte­rest busi­ness) emana­te for the cus­to­mer. The accep­tance of assets for pre­de­fi­ned pur­po­ses and with a low need for pro­tec­tion – e.g. the accep­tance and issu­an­ce of digi­tal cur­ren­ci­es or their sto­rage (safe­kee­ping) ana­log­ous to safe depo­sit boxes – must not fall under the Ban­king Act.