The four BFSA notification routes, step by step

One agreement, four routes

The Agreement of 21 December 2023 has been in force since 1 January 2026, and the new access it created became available on that date. The four routes follow from the Agreement's structure: market access runs sector by sector through the sectoral annexes, and the two annexes that matter here point in opposite directions. Annex 5 on investment services opens the United Kingdom to Swiss firms. Annex 4 on insurance opens Switzerland to UK insurers. Each has its own notification, its own verifying authority and its own clock. Three of the four end in a register entry: the two dedicated BFSA registers for Swiss investment firms and UK insurers, and FINMA's ordinary register of insurance intermediaries, under Swiss domestic law, for UK intermediaries. Only the notification by UK firms sending client advisers into Switzerland under Annex 5, Section IV.B.2 produces no register entry at all.

Two documents govern the mechanics in practice, and both should be consulted during a filing: the guidelines for firms published jointly by the FCA and the PRA, and FINMA's guidelines of 8 January 2026. Neither is legally binding, and FINMA says so expressly. Both describe what the two supervisors do with a filing.

Route one: a Swiss investment services firm onto the FCA register

The eligibility gate comes first, because a notification from an ineligible firm is wasted work. Annex 5 Section IV paragraph A admits a supplier that is authorised and supervised as a bank under the Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks, or as a securities firm, fund management company, manager of collective assets or portfolio manager under the Federal Act on Financial Institutions; is incorporated in or formed under Swiss law; is authorised by FINMA to supply the notified services in Switzerland; actually supplies them in Switzerland; and does not hold Part 4A permission in the United Kingdom for the services notified. Registration follows, and any later change relevant to the register entry must be notified.

FINMA's guidelines then rule out a set of firms. A sole proprietorship cannot qualify, because the Agreement requires an entity incorporated or formed under Swiss law. Neither can a Swiss branch or representative office of a foreign supplier. Holders of the fintech licence under Article 1b of the Banking Act are outside, as are trustees authorised under Article 17 paragraph 2 of the Financial Institutions Act. So are financial intermediaries affiliated to a self-regulatory organisation under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, and suppliers not subject to FINMA supervision by virtue of Article 3 of the Financial Market Supervision Act. For a Swiss asset-management group, the practical consequence is that the entity that holds the FinIA licence has to be the entity that files, and the entity that faces the UK client.

The filing itself is made on FINMA's survey and application platform, the EHP, and is transmitted from there to the FCA. FINMA lists what the form asks for: name and contact details, authorised status as bank, securities firm, fund management company, manager of collective assets or portfolio manager, the services the institution intends to supply under the Agreement, a confirmation that it is authorised for those services and already offers them outside the Agreement, and a confirmation that it will meet all the conditions of the Agreement. The FCA adds a dimension that needs precision: the notification identifies the covered services by covered financial instrument and by category of covered client, which is the combination that later defines the register entry.

One instruction in FINMA's guidelines deserves quoting in substance. A firm must verify, against the regulations in force and the activities specified in its own organisational documents, its statutes or articles, that it is authorised in or from Switzerland to carry on the activities it intends to supply into the United Kingdom. If it is not authorised to deal on own account, to underwrite or place covered financial instruments on a firm commitment basis, or to place them without a firm commitment, those boxes may not be ticked in the EHP form. Firms whose licence is narrower than their commercial ambition are therefore forced to choose between a smaller notification and a Swiss licence extension, and that choice belongs at the start of the project.

What follows is verification, with no assessment of the business behind it. FINMA carries out what it calls a properness review of the information in the notification and confirms its accuracy, and the firm's good standing, to the FCA by means of a good standing letter. It has 60 days. On receipt, the FCA places the firm on its public BFSA register within a further 30 days, and the firm may supply the notified services from the date of publication, not from the date of filing. Adding a service later repeats the exercise: re-notify, and wait, because the additional service cannot be provided until the register entry has been updated, with the same 60-day and 30-day limits applying to the amendment.

Route two: a UK insurer onto the FINMA register

This is the mirror route. Annex 4 gives UK insurers cross-border access to Swiss corporate clients without a Swiss establishment, and the filing is made through FCA Connect, where access defaults to the firm's Principal User. The form asks for the firm name, its firm reference number, contact details, the covered services including the classes of insurance the firm wishes to write in Switzerland, a self-declaration that it meets the eligibility criteria in Annex 4 Section IV paragraph B, and a declaration that it will comply with the conditions in Annex 4 Section VII.

The eligibility criteria are more demanding than the investment services equivalent. The supplier must be authorised and supervised in the United Kingdom as an insurer or insurance intermediary; must be incorporated or formed under UK law, resident in the United Kingdom, or a UK branch of a Swiss covered supplier; and must supply the relevant covered services in respect of risks located outside Switzerland. An insurer must in addition, at entity level, be generally subject to Solvency II requirements, which does not apply to UK branches of Swiss suppliers; meet its solvency requirements without capital relief measures, basing the calculation on the risk-free yield curve without the matching adjustment, the volatility adjustment, the dynamic volatility adjustment, transitional measures on the risk-free interest rate or transitional measures on technical provisions; fulfil its company-specific management buffer; have no life insurance liabilities except those stemming from non-life contracts, and where it has such liabilities keep their gross best estimate within 10 per cent of total best estimate liabilities on Solvency II figures computed without those capital relief measures; and ensure that staff involved in distribution under Swiss law have relevant knowledge of Swiss insurance legislation.

The condition that needs the most care is the requirement to supply the covered services in respect of risks outside Switzerland. Permissions are frequently broader than the book. The FCA and PRA guidelines are direct about the consequence: if a UK insurer does not offer a particular class of insurance outside Switzerland, whether in the United Kingdom or a third country, the Agreement does not permit it to write that class within Switzerland, and the PRA should be notified under Fundamental Rule 7 and Rule 2.3(1)(d) of the Notifications Part of the PRA Rulebook where that is the position. The PRA will then communicate the extent of the insurer's activity outside Switzerland to FINMA, and FINMA is expected to restrict the registration accordingly. A firm that files on the basis of its permissions without regard to what it underwrites can therefore end up with a public register entry narrower than the one it asked for.

The clock is shorter than on the Swiss side. The relevant UK authority verifies eligibility and good standing and informs FINMA within 30 days, and where it confirms, FINMA places the insurer on its register within a further 30 days, at which point the covered services may be supplied. For a notification of additional covered services or classes, the same two steps apply; for other modifications, FINMA amends the register within 30 days of receiving the notification. The PRA notifies the firm once it has been added.

Registration answers only the question of who may write the business. Two further limits define what may be written, and both belong in the underwriting file as much as in the compliance file. First, covered clients under Annex 4 Section V paragraph B are enterprises incorporated in Switzerland that, at the moment the insurance or intermediation contract is concluded, renewed or amended, meet at least two of three tests: net turnover in excess of CHF 40 million, balance sheet total in excess of CHF 20 million, or more than 250 employees. The test bites again at renewal and on amendment, so a client that shrinks below the thresholds is a renewal problem.

Second, the covered services may only be supplied to covered clients for risks situated in Switzerland and for their own risks and own direct and consequential losses, and for those of their covered subsidiaries, whether established in Switzerland for Swiss risks or in the United Kingdom for UK risks, provided that in each case the subsidiaries are referred to individually or collectively as insured in the contract. On a group master policy, that naming requirement is decisive.

Naming alone does not settle it. Covered subsidiary is a defined term: a legal entity established in Switzerland or the United Kingdom in which the covered client directly holds the majority of the votes or directly has the right to appoint or remove the majority of the board, or a joint venture established there in which it holds 50 per cent of the votes (Section II paragraph A.e). Indirectly held subsidiaries, other affiliates and entities in third countries are outside, and the miscellaneous financial loss class expressly excludes financial interests in a subsidiary or affiliate sought through a financial interest clause (Section III paragraph B.a.vii), so the usual device for bringing uninsurable group entities within a programme is not available in covered business.

The classes are a closed list in Annex 4 Section III paragraph B and are narrower than a UK commercial underwriter's usual appetite. They include damage to or loss of land and rail vehicles and inland vessels, goods in non-cross-border transit, theft and wilful damage with the fire, explosion, flood, storm, hail, avalanche, snow pressure, rockfall and landslide perils carved out, damage to nuclear facilities, credit, suretyship, miscellaneous financial losses, legal protection, business travel assistance for employees and board members, and a tightly drawn third-party liability class limited to directors and officers claims, warranty and indemnity cover in transactional contexts, and cyber indemnity where the claims come exclusively from enterprises meeting the covered client tests. Cyber and renewable energy are then expressly brought inside for business interruption, property damage including installations and equipment, and specified financial losses. Excluded are insurances subject to a public law regime, in particular state and cantonal building insurer monopolies, and any insurance requiring legally enforceable pool participation. FINMA adds that accident and health insurance, motor third-party liability and monopoly business are not covered.

The conditions in Annex 4 Section VII then run alongside the registration. An insurer must disclose in writing, clearly and within a reasonable time before the contract is concluded: its name and address; that it is authorised and supervised for the relevant classes by the UK authority and is not authorised and supervised by FINMA; that the client is personally responsible for paying the compulsory Swiss taxes levied on insurance premiums to the competent tax authority; contact details for obtaining information about the required knowledge and capabilities of distribution staff, for complaints about professional negligence and for errors or inaccurate information in distribution; and the place of jurisdiction and the applicable law of the contract. The premium tax item is the one to raise with the client early, because it allocates a Swiss tax obligation to the policyholder in a document the policyholder may not read closely.

On request, the supplier must also provide the client, within 30 days, with a full copy of the client file and all other documents within the scope of the business relationship, subject to data protection and confidentiality rules. Annual reporting goes to FINMA with a copy to the UK authority, and where gross premiums from covered sector activities exceed CHF 5,000,000 in the previous 12 months the report must break the premiums down by type of covered service and class.

Route three: the UK insurance intermediary, who files nothing under the Agreement

On this route the intuitive step, filing a BFSA notification, is the wrong one. Untied UK insurance intermediaries do not notify the FCA under the Agreement. What the Agreement gives them is narrow and specific: for an intermediary in a fiduciary relationship with the covered client, and not acting as an employee of an insurance supplier within Article 40 paragraph 2 of the Insurance Supervision Act, Swiss domestic law continues to apply except for the localisation requirement in Article 41 paragraph 2 letter a of that Act. The relief covers the Swiss establishment requirement only; Swiss regulation and the registration duty continue to apply.

The intermediary therefore registers with FINMA under Swiss domestic law, on the ordinary register of insurance intermediaries, using FINMA's normal documents on the EHP, and remains subject to Swiss supervisory law for both registration and supervision. Two things soften that. Professional qualifications recognised in the United Kingdom suffice to demonstrate the required skills and knowledge, with the vocational training association of the Swiss insurance industry recognising existing UK qualifications, so no Swiss examination is needed. And the disclosures the Agreement adds are short: that the client is personally responsible for the compulsory Swiss premium taxes, and the place of jurisdiction and applicable law of the contract. They sit on top of the Swiss statutory duties that bind every untied intermediary, including the pre-contractual information under Article 45, conflict-of-interest disclosure under Article 45a and the express disclosure of compensation received from insurers or third parties under Article 45b of the Insurance Supervision Act, together with the professional indemnity insurance or equivalent security that registration requires. Annual reporting follows the Swiss domestic route, due through the EHP by 31 May for the preceding calendar year; the 30 April BFSA date does not apply.

One further comfort is in the Agreement itself: distributing a contract in the covered classes that is supplied solely by a covered UK insurer does not count as the prohibited activity of acting for an insurer without a Swiss licence under Article 44 paragraph 1 letter a of the Insurance Supervision Act (Annex 4 Section VI paragraph A.b.iv).

Two pre-existing exemptions also survive alongside all of this, and the Agreement records them for greater certainty. A UK insurer without a Swiss branch remains outside FINMA supervision where it writes exclusively marine, aviation and international transport risks, risks located outside Switzerland or war risks (Article 1 paragraph 2 of the Insurance Supervision Ordinance), or where it supplies only reinsurance in Switzerland (Article 2 paragraph 2 letter a of the Insurance Supervision Act).

For intermediaries the position is narrower. The Ordinance applies the three-lines exemption to insurance intermediation by analogy, so a UK broker placing exclusively that business is likewise outside supervision. The reinsurance exemption is an insurer provision and does not transfer: a UK intermediary that places reinsurance in Switzerland still needs the ordinary FINMA registration and can, at most, be relieved of the Swiss establishment requirement at FINMA's discretion where it intermediates reinsurance exclusively (Article 186 paragraph 3 letter c of the Ordinance). An insurer whose business fits an exemption gains nothing from a BFSA filing; a broker should not read the insurer's exemption as its own.

Route four: UK client advisers into Switzerland, a notification with no register

The fourth route is the cheapest access route in the Agreement. Annex 5 Section IV paragraph B.2 covers a UK firm that sends employees into Switzerland temporarily to perform covered services as client advisers. The firm must be authorised and supervised in the United Kingdom, incorporated or formed under UK law, authorised to supply the relevant covered services in the United Kingdom and actually supplying them there; the activities of the firm and its client advisers must not amount to a permanent establishment in Switzerland; and the firm must have notified the FCA, indicating the covered services it wishes to supply through its client advisers.

The FCA and PRA guidelines specify how: once, before providing the services, through the notification form under SUP 15.7.1R, the requirement itself sitting in SUP 15.8.16R and reflecting the notification condition in Annex 5 Section IV paragraph B.2.f and Section IX paragraph B.1. There is no register, no verification step and no waiting period stated, which makes this the fastest route in the Agreement. What the firm gets is precise: relief for its client advisers from the duty to register with a Swiss registration body under Article 28 paragraph 1 of the Federal Act on Financial Services. The relief stops there. Section VIII paragraph A.2.c preserves three conditions the firm must satisfy itself are met: its client advisers have sufficient knowledge of the FinSA code of conduct and the expertise their activity requires (Article 6); they are covered by professional indemnity insurance or equivalent collateral (Article 29 paragraph 1 letter b and paragraph 3); and the firm is affiliated to a Swiss ombudsman where Article 77 requires it. Everything else in Swiss conduct law that applies to the relationship continues to apply, and the firm must be able to demonstrate compliance to the FCA.

The condition is a disclosure document, provided before the services begin, stating clearly that the firm is established in the United Kingdom and authorised and supervised in its home country, that the client-adviser registration duty under Article 28 paragraph 1 does not apply to its advisers, and, where applicable, the Swiss ombudsman to which the firm is affiliated under Article 77 of that Act. The clients reachable this way are high net worth clients within Article 5 paragraph 2 letter b of the Act, which is the CHF 2,000,000 opt-up population; the sterling test governs only the inbound direction. A UK private bank that flies relationship managers to Zurich to serve Swiss high net worth clients in reliance on the Agreement is squarely in this route, and one notification covers it; the notification rule is not triggered by every visit to Switzerland by UK staff.

What the BFSA verification covers, and the two conditions it does not

Verification under the Agreement is narrow, and the insurance annex makes the gap visible on the face of the text. Under Annex 4 Section VIII paragraph A.2.a, the UK authority verifies that the insurer meets the eligibility requirements in Section IV paragraphs B.a to c and B.d.i, ii and iv, and that it is of good standing. Compare that with the list of entity-level conditions. Paragraph d.iii, the company-specific management buffer, and paragraph d.v, the requirement that distribution staff possess relevant knowledge of Swiss insurance legislation, are not within the verified set. They are conditions of eligibility that the BFSA verification exercise does not confirm on the way in.

The firm declares them in the notification, as the supervisory memorandum of understanding of 22 September 2025 records, they otherwise fall within the PRA's and the FCA's ordinary supervision of the firm, they remain live for as long as it uses the Agreement, and if either fails the register entry rests on an eligibility statement that is no longer accurate. Those two therefore need an owner, a review date and a documented basis, and the Swiss-law knowledge condition in particular needs a training record that a supervisor could read.

The investment services annex has the same structure. Under Annex 5 Section X, FINMA verifies that the supplier meets the eligibility requirements in Section IV paragraphs A.a to d and f, and that it is of good standing. Paragraph A.e, the notification itself, paragraph A.g, being placed on the register, and paragraph A.h, the duty to notify later changes, sit outside the verified set, which is a reminder that the register entry rests in part on the firm's own statements. FINMA's review is otherwise a properness check of the notification's accuracy, plus a good standing confirmation. It is not an assessment of the firm's systems, its UK-facing conduct arrangements or its client classification. Those remain matters for FINMA's ordinary supervision of an authorised firm, and the good standing confirmation may draw on complaints, censures, investigations, disciplinary proceedings and other adverse information FINMA holds, as the memorandum of understanding records.

Host-side supervision comes afterwards, through channels the Agreement itself creates. FINMA must inform the FCA without undue delay when it becomes aware that a covered supplier has ceased to meet an eligibility requirement, is no longer of good standing, or is the subject of material complaints from covered clients (Section X paragraph A.2.d). In the other direction, a UK authority with reasonable grounds to suspect non-compliance with the Agreement, or conduct likely to cause material harm to covered clients or to UK financial stability, must notify FINMA, after which the two enter into a dialogue (Section X paragraph A.3).

The host authority also holds an intervention power that, after supervisory dialogue, allows it to restrict some or all covered services, require specified disclosures to clients, direct arrangements for an orderly wind-down, remove or amend the register entry and publicise the measures taken, with the firm entitled to prompt review before an independent tribunal. Cooperation between the three authorities runs under a memorandum of understanding dated 22 September 2025, and the UK's domestic implementing instrument, SI 2025/1145, gives the FCA and the PRA the matching statutory powers on their side, including a wind-down regime.

The register entry is the perimeter

Both registers are public, and what each records is a scope. On the FCA register the scope is the combination of covered service, covered financial instrument and category of covered client. On FINMA's it is the covered services and classes of insurance, and FINMA's guidelines note that the entry will state clearly where a UK insurer may offer only certain services within a class. Three consequences follow. Business outside the entry is not covered business. Adding to the entry takes a fresh notification and, in routes one and two, a wait. And because the entry is public, a mismatch between what the register says and what the firm is doing is visible to counterparties, brokers, clients and competitors as well as to supervisors.

The corollary is that the notification is a commercial document as much as a regulatory one. Notify too narrowly and the firm has to come back and wait before it can serve a client it has already found. Notify beyond the Swiss or UK authorisation and the filing fails verification, or worse, succeeds and leaves an inaccurate public entry. The right discipline is to map the intended book first, against the client categories and the instrument list, and to file once, accurately, for the whole of it.

The dates that matter now

Three timing points follow from the above for the remainder of 2026. First, the runway. A Swiss firm faces up to 90 days between filing and register entry, so a notification made after the start of October should not be planned around a 2026 launch, and the internal work that precedes the filing, the licence check against the statutes, the Part 4A overlap analysis and the client-category decisions, adds weeks before that. A UK insurer's 60-day worst case is more forgiving, but Connect access and Principal User permissions have to be arranged before anything can be filed.

Second, reporting. Anyone placed on a BFSA register during 2026 reports for the first time by 30 April 2027, covering the 2026 calendar year, on both sides of the Agreement. The date comes from the supervisors' guidelines; the Agreement fixes the content of the report and leaves the date to them. Firms registered between 1 January and 30 April of a given year do not report in that year. The data the reports require, client numbers by category of service and client type, turnover attributable to covered services, complaints of a material nature, title transfer collateral arrangements on the investment services side, and gross premiums by class and service on the insurance side, is easier to capture from the start of a relationship than to reconstruct in April. Insurance intermediaries on the Swiss domestic route report by 31 May instead.

Third, cost. The FCA and PRA guidelines record that fees for Swiss firms will not be affected until the 2027/28 financial year, based on data for 2025/26, and that a firm which varies or cancels a Part 4A permission in order to use the Agreement should stop reporting income and tariff data for those activities from the date of the variation or cancellation. The point matters if a firm keeps paying for permissions it has deliberately given up, or reports the same income twice.

What this means for you

• Identify your route before you look for a form. Four routes exist: two produce a BFSA register entry, one runs through FINMA's ordinary intermediary register with no BFSA notification at all, and one requires a single SUP 15 notification to the FCA on the prescribed form and produces no register entry. Filing on the wrong route can cost up to 90 days.
• Check the licence against the statutes before the ambition. Activities you are not authorised for in Switzerland cannot be ticked on the EHP form, and a UK insurer cannot write in Switzerland a class it does not write outside Switzerland.
• Own the two unverified conditions. The management buffer and the Swiss insurance-law knowledge of distribution staff are eligibility conditions that the BFSA verification does not check on the way in; the firm declares them itself. Give each an owner, a review date and a file.
• Name the covered subsidiaries, and check the definition. Cover extends only to directly controlled subsidiaries and 50 per cent joint ventures established in Switzerland or the United Kingdom, only where they are referred to individually or collectively as insured in the contract, and only for Swiss risks in Switzerland or UK risks in the United Kingdom. A financial interest clause does not bring other affiliates inside.
• Work back from 30 April 2027. First reports fall due then for the 2026 cohort. Build the data capture into onboarding now, before calendar 2026 has to be reconstructed in April 2027.

Isak Legal advises Swiss and UK financial institutions and insurers on market access under the Berne Financial Services Agreement, including notification strategy, eligibility analysis and the client and policy documentation that has to sit behind a register entry. See our Financial Regulation and United Kingdom pages, or get in touch.

This client update is provided for general information only, reflects the position as at 26 September 2026 and does not constitute legal advice or create a lawyer-client relationship. Eligibility criteria, covered clients, covered services, conditions and supervisory timelines are taken from Annex 4 Sections III, IV, V, VII and VIII and Annex 5 Sections III, IV and VIII to X of the Agreement, read in the Treaty Series text (Treaty Series No. 6 (2026), CP 1507); the notification mechanics, platform steps, form contents and the SUP 15 and PRA Rulebook references are drawn from the guidelines published by the FCA and the PRA and by FINMA, which are not legally binding and are updated from time to time. Verify the current guidelines, forms and register entries at the official sources linked above before filing. For advice on a specific matter, please contact us.