Lifting and end of licence conditions
Prudential supervision of a bank or securities firm ends when the requested lifting of licence conditions or liquidation process is completed or a merger takes place. As regards representative offices of foreign banks and securities firms, FINMA merely needs to be notified of their closure.
There can be various reasons for FINMA ending its supervision of a bank or securities firm:
- In the event of a merger, supervision ends on integration into the acquiring company.
- Companies that change their purpose to a business that does not require a licence can continue to operate after being released from prudential supervision.
- Banks and securities firms that decide to liquidate remain under FINMA supervision until they are deleted from the Commercial Register. The same applies to branches of foreign banks and securities firms if their parent company decides to close them.
Licence conditions are lifted, thus releasing the licence holder from prudential supervision, only when there are no more claims requiring protection and full account has been taken of creditor and investor protection.
