New transaction reports for securities trading from 2018

From January 2018, the Swiss Financial Market Infrastructure Act (RS 958.1, FMIA) which came into force in early 2016, will require participants admitted to a trading venue (Swiss securities dealers, foreign participants authorised by the FINMA, etc.) to report all the information required for the transparent trading of securities.

Similar requirements are already in place or will be added (depending on the types of counterparty) for OTC and ET derivatives. These will not be covered here.

Trading platforms (which in practice are the SIX Swiss Exchange, and the BX Berne eXchange) and multilateral trading facilities will be required to supervise price formation and the transactions conducted within their venues more closely to detect insider trading, price and market manipulation and any other violations of statutory or regulatory provisions. If a violation is suspected, the FINMA and possibly the relevant prosecuting authority will be informed.

Non-admitted securities traders will also be subject to the same transparent trading and reporting rules (article 15 paragraph 2 of the Federal Law on Stock Exchanges (LBVM; RS 954.1)).

Reporting requirements apply to all of a participant’s securities transactions (sale, purchase, etc.), whether proprietary or carried out on behalf of a client.

The following must be reported:

    • the title and number of securities bought or sold;
    • the volume and the date and time at which the transaction was concluded;
    • the price;
    • information required to establish the identity of the beneficial owner (new!).

The notion of beneficial owner will be the same as that used for provisions against money laundering.

However, operating legal entities, foundations and collective investments schemes will be identified by an internationally standardised Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). If no LEI is available, the BIC (business identifier code) or Commercial Register number, preceded by the country code, may be used. In the case of a trust, the trustee should be declared.

For natural persons, the nationality (country code), date of birth and a confidential identification number created by the participant will be used. This means that the person’s family name and given name will not be reported.

SIX Swiss Exchange is located in Zurich and trades most of the Swiss securities

However, the system will be different for transactions on the European market (including for Swiss residents): under MiFID II/MiFIR, the first five letters of the person’s given name and family name must be reported (CONCAT code). Nevertheless, an identifier such as a passport number, personal number or social security number can be used and has been adopted by numerous EU countries that do not use CONCAT codes.

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