# VSB 20 Art. 24 — Banks and other financial intermediaries as contracting partners - **Rubric (DE):** Banken und andere Finanzintermediäre als Vertragspartner - **Rubric (EN):** Banks and other financial intermediaries as contracting partners - **Chapter:** 3. Kapitel — Feststellung des wirtschaftlich Berechtigten an operativ tätigen juristischen Personen und Personengesellschaften (2. Abschnitt: Ausnahmen von der Feststellungspflicht) - **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: banks, securities firms (*Effektenhändler*), fund management companies (*Fondsleitungen*), life insurance companies, KAG-Investmentgesellschaften and KAG-Vermögensverwalter, and tax-exempt occupational pension institutions with registered office in Switzerland do not have to give a declaration about the controlling persons (*Kontrollinhaber*). Abs. 2: banks, securities firms and other financial intermediaries domiciled abroad must give a declaration if they are not subject to adequate prudential supervision and to regulation on combating money laundering and terrorist financing. ## Context & interpretation The SBA commentary states that casinos under Art. 2 Abs. 2 lit. e GwG also qualify as banks; foreign institutions are defined by the special laws of their domicile country. FATF member states and the Principality of Liechtenstein count as countries with adequate supervision and regulation; a bank may recognise financial intermediaries of other countries as subject to adequate prudential supervision and AML/CFT regulation, if it can assess this on the basis of special knowledge and enquiries and documents it. Art. 24 also applies to contracting partners open only to financial intermediaries (e.g. SIX SIS AG, Euroclear, Clearstream). It does not apply to fiduciaries (*Treuhänder*) unless they qualify as securities dealers under Art. 2 Abs. 2 GwG. ## FATF - [[FATF R.10 - Customer due diligence|FATF R.10]] — related: this article limits the controlling-person declaration used to identify the beneficial owner of legal-person customers. ## Swiss counterparts - [[GwV-FINMA Art. 58 - Exemptions from establishing controlling persons|GwV-FINMA Art. 58]] — parallel exemption for financial intermediaries in Switzerland (lit. c, with a different list of entities) and abroad (lit. d–e, with different supervision tests). - [[GwG Art. 2 - Scope of application (who is|GwG Art. 2]] — provision cited by the commentary (Abs. 2 lit. e for casinos; Abs. 2 for securities dealers). - [[VSB 20 Art. 20 - Establishing the controlling persons|VSB 20 Art. 20]] — the declaration duty to which this exemption applies (Art. 20 Abs. 6 reserves Art. 22–26). ## Related VSB articles - [[VSB 20 Art. 33 - Banks and other financial intermediaries|VSB 20 Art. 33]] — parallel exemption from the beneficial-owner declaration (Chapter 4) ## Part of - [[VSB 20]] ## Sources - VSB 20 (Vereinbarung vom 13. Juni 2018, in force 1.1.2020), Art. 24 - SBVg Kommentar zur VSB 20 (2020), Art. 24