What the Berne Agreement gives UK firms in Switzerland

Two annexes, two different bargains

The Agreement allocates market access sector by sector, and the two sectoral annexes that carry the United Kingdom outbound traffic were plainly negotiated to different ambitions. The difference is visible in the deference provisions themselves.

Under Annex 4 of the Agreement, Switzerland defers to UK authorisation and prudential measures for covered insurance services and lists, provision by provision, what a covered UK insurer is relieved from under the Insurance Supervision Act. The list runs to some two dozen headings and includes authorisation itself, the authorisation request and business plan and amendments to it, legal status, minimum equity and capital requirements, the organisation fund, business in addition to insurance business, sound and proper business conduct, avoidance of conflicts of interest, underwriting reserves, tied assets, participations, risk management, recovery planning, the responsible actuary, reporting, accounting, internal and external audits, the regime for insurers of professional policyholders and intragroup insurance, legal protection, reinsurance, education and training, information to the client, conflicts of interest, supply of documents to clients, recovery and resolution, and end of business requirements. It is a substantial carve-out from the Swiss regime, and it is what makes cross-border writing from London viable without a Swiss establishment.

Under Annex 5, the deference accorded by Switzerland to UK investment firms is a single line. The authorisation measure deferred to is the duty to register as a client adviser in the Register of Advisers under Article 28 paragraph 1 of the Federal Act on Financial Services, and only for firms using client advisers within the meaning of Section IV paragraph B.2. There is no prudential deference at all. The Agreement then states expressly that this does not relieve the UK supplier from satisfying itself that specified conditions of that Act are met, namely that its advisers know the FinSA conduct rules and have the expertise Article 6 requires, that professional indemnity insurance or equivalent collateral is in place under Article 29, and that the firm is affiliated to a Swiss ombudsman where Article 77 requires (Section VIII paragraph A.2.c).

What a UK investment firm gets

Read carefully, the investment services annex gives a UK firm a relief for advisers on temporary visits, with no new market access and no change to Swiss visa and entry requirements (Section VIII paragraph A.2.d). Its employees may perform covered services in Switzerland on a temporary basis as client advisers, without those advisers appearing on a Swiss register, provided the firm is authorised and supervised in the United Kingdom, is incorporated or formed under UK law, is authorised for and in fact supplies the relevant services in the United Kingdom, and the activities of the firm and its advisers do not amount to a permanent establishment in Switzerland. One notification to the FCA covers it, and the filing mechanics are dealt with separately.

The baseline matters. Swiss law already exempts the advisers of a foreign provider that is prudentially supervised at home and serves only professional and institutional clients (Article 31 of the Financial Services Ordinance, as FINMA's registration-body page states); registration bites where such a provider also serves private clients, and FINMA counts wealthy clients who have opted out under Article 5 FinSA as private clients for this purpose. The Agreement's relief therefore matters for the opted-out high-net-worth segment in Section V paragraph B.3, which is the segment a UK wealth manager is most likely to be visiting.

What the firm does not get is relief from Swiss conduct law. The Financial Services Act continues to govern the relationship, with its rules of conduct not applying to institutional clients and partly waivable by professional clients (Article 20 FinSA), and FINMA's guidelines confirm that the firm must give each high net worth client a disclosure document stating that it is established in the United Kingdom and authorised and supervised there, 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 it is affiliated under Article 77 of that Act. The ombudsman reference illustrates the point: affiliation, where applicable, is not among the things the Agreement takes away.

Two elements of the Swiss-inbound definition are nonetheless more generous than the mirror image. The covered services are the financial services defined by the Federal Act on Financial Services (FinSA), meaning acquisition or disposal of financial instruments, receipt and transmission of orders, portfolio management, personal recommendations on transactions, and granting loans to finance transactions in financial instruments, together with a list of services under the Federal Act on Financial Institutions covering dealing in securities in a firm's own name for clients, short-term own-account trading, market making, underwriting and placing, creating derivatives offered to the public, holding settlement accounts and acting as custodian. The Agreement also states for greater certainty that investment research and portfolio analysis, foreign exchange services, and advice and services relating to mergers and acquisitions are included.

The covered financial instruments are wider still. The Swiss-inbound list covers equity securities and securities convertible into them, debt instruments, units in collective investment schemes, structured products such as capital protected products, capped return products and certificates, derivatives, deposits whose redemption value or interest is risk or price dependent other than those linked to an interest rate index, and bonds. The list running the other way is drawn by UK legal category (transferable securities, money market instruments, collective investment schemes and derivatives), so a structured note typically sits inside it as securitised debt or a securitised derivative (PERG 13.4); the gap is the risk-linked deposit, which UK law treats as a deposit and keeps outside the financial-instrument categories. The Swiss list's naming of structured products therefore adds certainty more than scope, and what being inside earns the UK firm is the client-adviser registration relief alone.

The clients reachable are institutional clients and other professional clients as defined by the Financial Services Act, together with high net worth clients under Article 5 paragraph 2 letter b of that Act who have declared that they wish to be treated as professional clients and have assets at their disposal of at least CHF 2,000,000 as defined in Article 5 paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Federal Ordinance on Financial Services of 6 November 2019. Note the difference from the sterling test governing the other direction: financial investments at the client's disposal as defined in Article 5 of the Financial Services Ordinance (deposits, securities, derivatives, precious metals and life policies with a surrender value; direct real estate, social-insurance claims and pension assets excluded) against the UK test of net assets after the treaty's own exclusions, at least CHF 2,000,000 against more than GBP 2,000,000, and an opt-up declaration against a treaty-defined status. Firms running both directions need two separate classification procedures.

What the insurance deference buys, and what it does not

On the insurance side the deference is substantial and the gate is narrow: three separate limits apply.

The classes are a closed list. 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 excluded, 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 covering only directors and officers claims, warranty and indemnity cover in transactional contexts, and cyber indemnity where claims come exclusively from enterprises meeting the covered client test. Cyber and renewable energy are 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 clients are large Swiss corporates only. A covered client is an enterprise incorporated in Switzerland that, at the moment the insurance or intermediation contract is concluded, renewed or amended, meets at least two of three tests: net turnover above CHF 40 million, balance sheet total above CHF 20 million, or more than 250 employees. Because the test is applied again at renewal and on amendment, a client that falls below the thresholds becomes a renewal problem.

The risks are Swiss risks. Covered services may be supplied only for risks situated in Switzerland and for the client's own risks and own direct and consequential losses, and for those of its covered subsidiaries, whether established in Switzerland for Swiss risks or in the United Kingdom for UK risks, and only where those subsidiaries are referred to individually or collectively as insured in the contract. On a group programme that naming requirement decides whether the cover is inside the Agreement or outside it.

The insurer itself must qualify (Annex 4 Section IV.B). It must already write the relevant classes for risks outside Switzerland, so a class not offered elsewhere cannot be offered into Switzerland; it must be subject to Solvency II at entity level and meet its solvency requirements without the matching, volatility or transitional adjustments; it must hold its company-specific management buffer; its life liabilities may not exceed the ten per cent non-life-derived allowance; and the staff distributing into Switzerland must know Swiss insurance law. It then notifies FINMA through the FCA's Connect system, the PRA and FCA confirm eligibility and good standing within 30 days, FINMA registers within a further 30 days, and only from the register entry may covered business be written (FCA and PRA guidelines, paragraphs 3.9 to 3.15 and 3.21 to 3.24).

Three conditions then attach. A pre-contractual disclosure in writing, clearly drafted and given a reasonable time before conclusion, covering the insurer's name and address, that it is authorised and supervised for the relevant classes in the United Kingdom and not by FINMA, that the client is personally responsible for paying the compulsory Swiss taxes levied on insurance premiums to the competent tax authority, contact points for information on the knowledge and capabilities of distribution staff, for complaints about professional negligence and for errors in distribution activity, and the place of jurisdiction and applicable law. An obligation, on request, to provide the client within 30 days with a full copy of its file and all other documents within the scope of the relationship, subject to data protection and confidentiality rules. And annual reporting to FINMA with a copy to the UK authority, with a breakdown of gross premiums by covered service and class where premiums from covered sector activities exceed CHF 5,000,000 in the previous twelve months.

For intermediaries the position is different again, and narrower. Swiss domestic law continues to apply to an untied UK intermediary in a fiduciary relationship with the covered client, except for Article 41 paragraph 2 letter a of the Insurance Supervision Act, a provision the FCA and PRA guidelines describe as a localisation requirement, while FINMA's guidelines describe the relief as an exemption from the registration requirement. The intermediary still registers with FINMA under Swiss law and remains subject to Swiss supervision; what the relief removes, as the FCA and PRA guidelines put it, is the requirement to be established in Switzerland. UK professional qualifications are recognised as evidence of the required training, and annual reporting runs on the Swiss domestic timetable, due by 31 May in place of the insurers' 30 April.

Before any of this is used, it is worth checking whether the Agreement is needed at all. A UK supplier remains outside FINMA supervision where, without a Swiss branch, it writes exclusively marine, aviation and international transport risks, risks located outside Switzerland or war risks, or supplies only reinsurance in Switzerland. Those pre-existing exemptions survive, and for a specialty writer they may cover the whole book without a register entry or an annual report.

What FINMA can do to a UK insurer inside the regime

The host authority retains powers, and the insurance annex sets out FINMA's in detail. Where FINMA has reasonable grounds to suspect that a covered UK supplier is not complying with the Agreement, or that its conduct causes or is likely to cause material harm to covered clients or to the integrity or stability of the Swiss financial system, it notifies the UK authority and the two enter into a dialogue aimed at a mutually acceptable solution. The UK authority is to provide the information needed for FINMA's assessment and, where appropriate, take measures without undue delay. If the dialogue does not resolve the matter, FINMA may request information directly from the UK firm.

If the harm-based matter still does not resolve, FINMA may restrict the firm from supplying certain or all covered services into Switzerland (Annex 4 Section VIII paragraph 4). Alongside a restriction it may require the firm to disclose specified information to covered clients or potential clients, determine arrangements for the orderly wind-down of the affected activities in coordination with the UK authority where necessary, remove or amend the firm's entry in the register, and publicly inform on the measures taken. It may serve documents, including its decisions, directly on the UK firm. The firm is entitled to the rights a Swiss-authorised firm would have in like circumstances, including prompt review and access to an independent judicial, arbitral or administrative tribunal, and FINMA must review any measure with a view to rescinding it once the underlying matter is resolved. In exceptional circumstances requiring immediate action, FINMA may act without the prior dialogue, in which case it notifies the UK authority when or immediately after the measure is taken.

Two practical implications follow. First, the public register entry is also the instrument of enforcement: it can be amended or removed, and the measures can be published, so a supervisory problem in Switzerland is a reputational event in the United Kingdom. Second, a UK insurer relying on the Agreement should know which of its own people would receive a direct request for information from FINMA and what they would do with it, because service can come directly and need not pass through the FCA. None of this treaty machinery exists for UK investment firms: Annex 5 gives them no register entry and no host intervention mechanism, and FINMA reaches them, if at all, under Swiss domestic law.

How to read the asymmetry commercially

The asymmetry is by design and it points the two industries in different directions. For a UK insurer the Agreement is a market-entry instrument: it removes the Swiss authorisation and prudential layer for a defined class of large-corporate business, and the work is eligibility, underwriting scope, client testing, policy wording and a modest reporting obligation. For a UK investment firm it is a visiting-adviser and cost instrument: it removes an adviser registration formality and, beyond that, only records and protects the cross-border access UK firms already have under Swiss domestic law (Section VIII paragraph B, with a consultation procedure if Switzerland proposes to restrict it), so the Swiss conduct framework has to be built into the client relationship whether or not the Agreement is used.

That has a corollary for firms weighing a Swiss presence. Because the investment services deference is so thin, the Agreement does very little to displace the ordinary options for serving Swiss clients at scale, which remain cross-border service from London under Swiss domestic law (FinSA applying, with adviser registration where private clients are served), a Swiss entity with the relevant Financial Institutions Act authorisation, or a relationship with a Swiss-licensed institution. Where the objective is periodic client contact in Zurich or Geneva by London-based advisers, the Agreement is well fitted and inexpensive. Where the objective is a Swiss book with local people and local booking, it is not the instrument, and the analysis converts into the same choice a Swiss firm faces going the other way: cross-border, branch or subsidiary.

What this means for you

• Do not read across from the Swiss-into-UK direction. The two directions are different bargains. Insurance receives deference across a substantial part of the Insurance Supervision Act; investment services receives relief from one registration duty only.
• Investment firms: build the Swiss conduct layer anyway. The Financial Services Act still governs the relationship, and the Agreement expressly preserves the conditions the firm must satisfy itself are met: adviser knowledge and expertise, professional indemnity cover and ombudsman affiliation where required (Section VIII paragraph A.2.c).
• Read the instrument lists by legal category. The Swiss list names structured products and risk-linked deposits; the UK list reaches structured notes as transferable securities and leaves out risk-linked deposits. The value of the difference is modest, because the Swiss deference consists only of the client-adviser registration relief.
• Insurers: the naming and renewal points decide coverage. Subsidiaries must be named individually or collectively as insured, and the covered client thresholds are retested at conclusion, renewal and amendment.
• Insurers: plan for a direct approach from FINMA. The host authority can request information directly, restrict services, require client disclosures, order a wind-down, amend or remove the register entry and publish the measures. Decide now who in the firm handles that. Investment firms have no register entry and no treaty intervention mechanism to plan for.

Isak Legal advises UK and Swiss financial institutions and insurers on cross-border market access under the Berne Financial Services Agreement, Swiss conduct requirements and the client and policy documentation that supports either direction. The Agreement text and the Financial Services Act are the primary sources; the FCA's BFSA page and FINMA's BFSA page carry the regulators' guidelines. 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. The deference lists, covered services, instruments, clients, conditions and supervisory powers described are taken from Annex 4 Sections III to VIII and Annex 5 Sections III to X of the Agreement text; the disclosure requirements for client advisers and the statements on classes not covered are drawn from the guidelines published by FINMA and by the FCA and the PRA, which are not binding and are updated from time to time. Swiss tax treatment of insurance premiums requires separate advice. Verify the current texts at the official sources linked above before acting. For advice on a specific matter, please contact us.