# VSB 20 Art. 29 — Natural persons - **Rubric (DE):** Natürliche Personen - **Rubric (EN):** Natural persons - **Chapter:** 4. Kapitel — Feststellung des wirtschaftlich Berechtigten an den Vermögenswerten (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 If the bank has no doubt that the contracting party is identical with the beneficial owner (*wirtschaftlich Berechtigter*), it is exempt from the duty under [[VSB 20 Art. 27 - Establishing the beneficial owner|Art. 27]] Abs. 1. It records this circumstance in a suitable manner. ## Context & interpretation The SBA commentary states that the law leaves open how the absence of doubt is to be recorded, so the form is at each bank's discretion. It names as possible forms: a note by the bank on the account-opening application, a declaration of the contracting party in the contract, an internal file note or an entry in the client history, or the general collection of a *Formular A*; a bank that generally collects Formular A needs no additional record. The commentary states that no examples of when doubt exists were deliberately given, because this must be decided on the concrete circumstances of each case, and refers to the commentary on Art. 46. ## FATF - [[FATF R.10 - Customer due diligence|FATF R.10]] — related: the beneficial-owner declaration is dispensed with where the bank has no doubt that the customer is the beneficial owner. ## Swiss counterparts - [[VSB 20 Art. 27 - Establishing the beneficial owner|VSB 20 Art. 27]] — the beneficial-owner declaration duty (Abs. 1) from which this article exempts. - [[GwV-FINMA Art. 59 - Beneficial owner – principle|GwV-FINMA Art. 59]] — Abs. 1 requires the written declaration where the contracting party is not identical with the beneficial owner or the intermediary doubts this; Abs. 4 requires documenting in suitable form that there is no doubt. ## Part of - [[VSB 20]] ## Sources - VSB 20 (Vereinbarung vom 13. Juni 2018, in force 1.1.2020), Art. 29 - SBVg Kommentar zur VSB 20 (2020), Art. 29