Dialogue on Switzerlands financial centre:promoting collective investment instruments- early recognition of internationaldevelopments
The Swiss Financial Centre Dialogue Steering Committee set up to improve conditions and increase the competitiveness of Switzerlands financial centre in January approved the first package of measures on2 September 2008. These measures provide clarity in the taxation of the hedge fund business and the private equity business and contribute to liberalising authorisation practices for investment funds.
At its meeting on 2 September 2008, the Swiss Financial Centre Dialogue Steering Committee approved various measures and a schedule of further work to promote the Swiss financial centre for the attention of the Strategy Committee.
To increase Switzerlands appeal in terms of hedge funds and private equity, a circular from the Federal Tax Administration is to clarify the tax-related problems linked to the performance fee and carried interest. The procedure of voluntary subordination to supervision by the SwissFederal Banking Commission (SFBC) for asset managers in Switzerland whomanage offshore funds (in particular managers of single hedge funds), should be simplified.
With a view to promoting the production of Swiss investment funds, the authorisation procedure should be rendered more efficient. To achieve this goal the SFBC intends to forego the so-called Swiss finish for Swiss and foreign investment funds.
A permanent joint monitoring group is to be responsible for the early recognition and analysis of international regulatory developments in the financial markets to enable the authorities and the sectors concerned to react quickly to developments in foreign regulatory frameworks. In addition a technical working group is to deal with establishing international standards to combat financial crime.
The Swiss Financial Centre Dialogue Steering Committee has adopted an extensive work schedule. The core points of the Swiss Financial Centre Dialogue Steering Committees other work concerns mainly:- additional improvements for Switzerland as a production centre for investmentfunds (e.g. selective introduction of the reporting procedure for collective capitalinvestments, extending the target investor group for single-investor funds,recommendations for measures to strengthen real estate funds, variousadjustments to unit trusts, recommendations for measures to increase theattractiveness of single manager hedge funds and funds of hedge funds).- consolidation of various initiatives in the insurance sector. This includes the question of whether and how the Swiss and EU insurance markets can be brought even closer together. To that end, the corresponding EU legislation will be compared with Swiss law. The economic impact of such scenarios will also be analysed. With the mutual recognition of the supervisory frameworks the conditions can be created for pan-European insurance activities.- detailed examination of the economic effects of increased competitiveness of the financial centre.
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