Federal Council initiates consultation on amendments to Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance

Bern, 01.10.2021 - On 1 October 2021, the Federal Council initiated the consultation on amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance and other ordinances. The proposed amendments provide more detail on the measures in the revised Anti-Money Laundering Act and improve the integrity of the Swiss financial centre.

Parliament approved the revision of the Anti-Money Laundering Act on 19 March 2021. This strengthens Switzerland's toolkit to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, and includes the most important recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) mutual evaluation report on Switzerland of 2016. The measures require implementing provisions, specifically in the area of the reporting system for money laundering, the introduction of a licencing requirement for purchasing precious metal scrap, the appointment of the Central Office for Precious Metal Control as the new money laundering oversight authority, and the transparency of associations that carry a greater risk of terrorist financing.

The proposed ordinance amendments serve mainly to provide more detail on the adopted measures. In addition, it is planned to use this opportunity to transpose relevant disclosure provisions from the money laundering ordinances of the supervisory authorities and the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) into the Federal Council's money laundering ordinance.

The Federal Council is proposing amendments not just to the Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance, but also to the Ordinance on the Money Laundering Report Office Switzerland, the Commercial Register Ordinance, the Precious Metals Control Ordinance and the Ordinance on Fees for Precious Metal Control. At the same time, the Federal Customs Administration (FCA) has launched the consultation on its new Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance, which likewise provides more detail on the measures in the revised Anti-Money Laundering Act. The consultation will last until 17 January 2022.

Address for enquiries

Communications
State Secretariat for International Finance SIF
Tel. +41 58 462 46 16, info@sif.admin.ch