Federal Act of 10 October 1997 on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Anti-Money Laundering Act, AMLA)

At a glance

Full text

Official full text: Federal Act of 10 October 1997 on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Anti-Money Laundering Act, AMLA) (PDF, de)¹ · 416 KB · file checked 2026-09-24 · consolidated version of 2024-03-01

Official page: fedlex.admin.ch¹ · Official English translation: fedlex.data.admin.ch²

Summary

The Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA, SR 955.0) governs the prevention and detection of money laundering, terrorist financing, and the concealment of criminal assets across the Swiss financial system. It applies to prudentially supervised entities (banks, securities firms, fund managers, insurers, DLT trading facilities, casinos) and non-prudentially supervised financial intermediaries who professionally accept, hold, or transfer third-party assets (payment processors, crypto brokers, virtual asset service providers, lending platforms, credit providers). It also covers commercial goods dealers accepting cash exceeding CHF 100,000. AMLA creates a dual-tier supervisory framework: FINMA directly supervises prudential institutions and recognises Self-Regulatory Organisations (SROs) under Article 24, while fintechs and parabanking intermediaries must secure mandatory affiliation to a recognised SRO under Article 14. Key obligations include verifying customer identities, identifying ultimate beneficial owners (with a 25% control threshold), conducting enhanced due diligence on higher-risk or PEP relationships, retaining records for 10 years, immediately reporting suspicious transactions to the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS), freezing suspicious assets, and adhering to strict anti-tipping-off rules.

Summary written by the Atlas from the official text; the law itself prevails.

Main articles

• Art. 1: Defines the scope of combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and ensuring due diligence in financial transactions.
• Art. 2: Defines covered entities, distinguishing prudentially supervised institutions (para. 2) from parabanking intermediaries and crypto/payment services (para. 3).
• Art. 2a: Defines foreign and domestic politically exposed persons (PEPs) and establishes a 25% control threshold for identifying beneficial owners.
• Art. 3: Obliges financial intermediaries to verify customer identity using evidentiary documents upon establishing business relationships or substantial cash transactions.
• Art. 4: Requires intermediaries to identify and verify beneficial owners with required due diligence and obtain written declarations where ownership is indirect.
• Art. 5: Mandates repeating customer and beneficial owner identification when doubt arises regarding identity during an ongoing business relationship.
• Art. 6: Imposes special due diligence duties to clarify the background and purpose of higher-risk transactions, business relationships, or PEP involvement.
• Art. 7: Requires retaining transaction and clarification records for at least ten years and periodically checking and updating customer files based on risk.
• Art. 8: Obliges financial intermediaries to implement organizational measures, adequate staff training, and periodic controls to prevent financial crime.
• Art. 8a: Imposes customer verification, beneficial ownership identification, and record-keeping duties on commercial goods dealers accepting cash over CHF 100,000.
• Art. 9: Mandates immediately filing suspicious activity reports with MROS whenever assets are suspected of criminal origin or terrorist financing links.
• Art. 10: Directs intermediaries to immediately freeze assets connected to suspicious activity reports pending notification or instructions from prosecution authorities.
• Art. 10a: Prohibits informing affected clients or third parties about filed MROS reports or asset freezes, enforcing a strict anti-tipping-off rule.
• Art. 11: Protects financial intermediaries who file reports or freeze assets in good faith from criminal and civil breach of secrecy liability.
• Art. 11a: Obliges financial intermediaries to furnish all additional information requested by MROS to analyse filed suspicious activity reports.
• Art. 12: Allocates supervisory authority among FINMA for prudential institutions, specialized federal bodies for gaming and metals, and SROs for parabanking.
• Art. 14: Requires non-prudentially supervised financial intermediaries (including crypto brokers and payment providers) to obtain mandatory affiliation to a recognised SRO.
• Art. 18: Empowers FINMA to recognise, supervise, and sanction self-regulatory organisations and approve their binding regulatory rulebooks.
• Art. 20: Authorises FINMA to take enforcement action against entities operating without SRO affiliation, including ordered liquidation and commercial register deletion.
• Art. 23: Designates the Federal Office of Police (fedpol) to operate the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS).
• Art. 24: Establishes criteria for FINMA recognition of SROs, requiring independent executive bodies, reputable managers, and enforceable compliance regulations.
• Art. 25: Mandates SROs to issue regulations specifying due diligence duties, affiliation requirements, periodic audit oversight, and appropriate contractual penalties.
• Art. 28: Governs FINMA's procedure for withdrawing SRO recognition and gives affiliated members two months to join another recognised SRO.
• Art. 37: Imposes criminal fines up to CHF 500,000 for intentional failure to file suspicious activity reports, or CHF 150,000 for negligence.

Licences it governs

• VASP · Switzerland

  Financial intermediary / VASP SRO affiliation (Finanzintermediär nach Art. 2 Abs. 3 GwG / AMLA)

  FINMA

Regulators that apply it

• Switzerland

  Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA)

  FINMA is Switzerland's independent financial markets authority, established under the Financial Market Supervision Act (FINMASA) to protect

Upcoming changes

• 2026-10-01: Entry into force of the Federal Act on the Transparency of Legal Entities and Identification of Beneficial Owners (TJPG) and comprehensive amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AS 2026 322), establishing a central federal beneficial ownership register and extending AML due diligence to certain advisory services³