The Swiss Federal Department of Finance and FINMA open consultation on the Financial Market Infrastructure Ordinance and the FINMA Financial Market Infrastructure Ordinance

On 20 August 2015, the Swiss Federal Department of Finance and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) initiated hearings on the Financial Market Infrastructure Ordinance (FMIO) and the FINMA Financial Market Infrastructure Ordinance (FMIO-FINMA).

The Swiss Parliament adopted the Financial Market Infrastructure Act (FMIA) on 19 June 2015. The FMIA is intended to regulate financial market infrastructures - such as exchanges, multilateral trading systems, central counterparties, trade repositories, etc. - and derivative transactions in line with market developments and international standards, such as EU Regulation No 648/2012 on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories (EMIR). The FMIA not only combines provisions that are currently diffused in various federal acts in a single law but also includes numerous provisions which are entirely new for Switzerland.

The FMIA charges the Federal Council and FINMA with the task of issuing implementing provisions - they have done this by setting up the FMIO and the FMIO-FINMA respectively.