# VSB 20 Art. 13 — Identification without an entry in the Swiss Commercial Register or an equivalent foreign register and identification of a public authority - **Rubric (DE):** Identifizierung ohne Eintrag im schweizerischen Handelsregister oder in einem gleichwertigen ausländischen Register sowie Identifizierung von Behörden - **Rubric (EN):** Identification without an entry in the Swiss Commercial Register or an equivalent foreign register and identification of a public authority - **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 Abs. 1: legal persons and partnerships (*Personengesellschaften*) that are not entered in the Swiss commercial register or an equivalent foreign register are identified either by a written extract from a database kept by the supervisory authority or by a trustworthy private party, by the articles of association (*Statuten*), or by equivalent documents. Abs. 2: public authorities (*Behörden*) are identified by means of a suitable statute or resolution (*Statut / Beschluss*) or by other equivalent documents or sources. ## Context & interpretation The SBA commentary names as examples for unregistered entities: founding documents, the founding contract, an audit firm's confirmation, a certificate of incumbency, of good standing or of incorporation, or an official authorisation to carry on the activity; per the VSB supervisory commission's practice, unsigned articles of association also suffice. Condominium communities (*Stockwerkeigentümergemeinschaften*) are identified by a land-register extract (alternatively by a simple copy of their regulations and a minutes extract authorising the administrator to run the account); Art. 15 does not apply to them. For tied pension products (e.g. pillar 3a) the pension institution is the contracting party. ## FATF - [[FATF R.10 - Customer due diligence|FATF R.10]] — related: identification of a legal-person, partnership or authority customer where no register entry exists. ## Swiss counterparts - [[GwV-FINMA Art. 47 - Legal entities, partnerships and authorities|GwV-FINMA Art. 47]] — Abs. 2 is the parallel rule for unregistered legal persons and partnerships (statutes, founding deed, founding contract, auditor's confirmation, official authorisation or equivalent document, or an extract from trustworthy privately kept directories and databases); it does not name databases kept by a supervisory authority, which VSB Art. 13 Abs. 1 does. Abs. 3 on authorities is worded the same as VSB Art. 13 Abs. 2, except that GwV-FINMA Art. 47 says "Statuts oder Beschlusses" where the VSB writes "Statuts / Beschlusses". - [[GwG Art. 3 - Verification of the identity of|GwG Art. 3]] — statutory basis: identification of the contracting party on the basis of a probative document (Abs. 1). - [[VSB 20 Art. 12 - Identification of registered entities|VSB 20 Art. 12]] — the rule for entities that are entered in a register. - [[VSB 20 Art. 23 - Public authorities|VSB 20 Art. 23]] — the commentary refers to its remarks on Art. 23 for the concept of authority. ## Part of - [[VSB 20]] ## Sources - VSB 20 (Vereinbarung vom 13. Juni 2018, in force 1.1.2020), Art. 13 - SBVg Kommentar zur VSB 20 (2020), Art. 13