# VSB 20 Art. 12 — Identification based on an entry in the Swiss Commercial Register or an equivalent foreign register - **Rubric (DE):** Identifizierung bei Eintrag im schweizerischen Handelsregister oder in einem gleichwertigen ausländischen Register - **Rubric (EN):** Identification based on an entry in the Swiss Commercial Register or an equivalent foreign register - **Chapter:** 2. Kapitel — Identifizierung des Vertragspartners (3. Abschnitt: Juristische Personen und Personengesellschaften) - **Scope:** Banks & securities firms (incorporated via [[GwV-FINMA Art. 35 - Identification, controlling person and beneficial|GwV-FINMA Art. 35]]) - **Status:** In force (since 1 January 2020) ## Description Where a business relationship is established with a legal person or partnership (*Personengesellschaft*) entered in the Swiss commercial register or an equivalent foreign register, the bank identifies the contracting party (*Vertragspartner*) either with a register extract issued by the registrar (*Registerführer*) or with a written extract from a database kept by the register authority, a supervisory authority or a trustworthy private party. ## Context & interpretation The SBA commentary gives examples of a database kept by a supervisory authority or a trustworthy private party within the meaning of Art. 12: the directories of Teledata, Creditreform, Intrum Justitia, Dun & Bradstreet and Deltavista, registers for certificates of good standing, the website of the Federal Office for the Commercial Register (www.zefix.ch), and the directories of supervised financial intermediaries published on the websites of the relevant foreign supervisory authorities. ## FATF - [[FATF R.10 - Customer due diligence|FATF R.10]] — related: identification of a legal-person or partnership customer on the basis of a register extract. ## Swiss counterparts - [[GwV-FINMA Art. 47 - Legal entities, partnerships and authorities|GwV-FINMA Art. 47]] — Abs. 1 is the parallel rule for registered legal entities and partnerships: register extract from the registrar (lit. a), written extract from a database kept by the register authority (lit. b), or written extract from trustworthy privately kept directories and databases (lit. c). Abs. 1 does not name databases kept by a supervisory authority, which VSB Art. 12 does. - [[GwG Art. 3 - Verification of the identity of|GwG Art. 3]] — statutory basis: Abs. 1 requires identification of the contracting party on the basis of a probative document (*beweiskräftiges Dokument*). ## Part of - [[VSB 20]] ## Further AMLR connections - [[AMLR Art. 22 - ID - verify customer + BO|AMLR Art. 22]] — VSB Art. 12 verifies a registered legal entity through a register extract or trusted database extract, a form of the reliable independent source referred to in AMLR Art. 22(6)(a). *(related)* ## Sources - VSB 20 (Vereinbarung vom 13. Juni 2018, in force 1.1.2020), Art. 12 - SBVg Kommentar zur VSB 20 (2020), Art. 12