Fi­nan­cial Di­a­logue Switzer­land – United King­dom: things are mov­ing for­ward!

Switzer­land and the United King­dom are among the three largest ex­porters of fi­nan­cial ser­vices world­wide. The UK's with­drawal from the Eu­ro­pean Union of­fers now the op­por­tu­nity to deepen bi­lat­eral re­la­tions in the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor. Am­bi­tions are high: a com­pre­hen­sive bi­lat­eral agree­ment should open the doors for the British and Swiss fi­nan­cial in­dus­try as much as pos­si­ble. And it should be con­cluded soon. Not har­mon­i­sa­tion but mu­tual recog­ni­tion of the re­spec­tive na­tional reg­u­la­tions and su­per­vi­sory re­quire­ments should be the basis for mar­ket ac­cess. 

Im­por­tant stock-tak­ing

Two months after the joint state­ment of the Fed­eral Coun­cil­lor Mau­rer and the British Fi­nance Min­is­ter Sunak, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the State Sec­re­tariat for In­ter­na­tional Fi­nan­cial Mat­ters (SIF) and Her Majesty’s Trea­sury met for in-depth tech­ni­cal talks. The talks fo­cussed on the con­tent of the fu­ture fi­nan­cial ser­vices agree­ment and other pos­si­ble areas of co­op­er­a­tion. 

The fact that both par­ties are al­ready en­gaged in such a sub­stan­tial ex­change is an im­por­tant and en­cour­ag­ing sign for the Swiss fi­nan­cial in­dus­try. The busi­ness com­mu­nity has al­ready car­ried out in-depth prepara­tory work and brought in con­crete ideas in a joint po­si­tion paper by the British and Swiss fi­nan­cial in­dus­try. 

In close ex­change with the busi­ness com­mu­nity

Equally pos­i­tive is the fact that on the eve of the Fi­nan­cial Di­a­logue, the busi­ness com­mu­nity had the op­por­tu­nity to meet with the au­thor­i­ties of both coun­tries. Or­ga­nized and mod­er­ated by the Swiss Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion, some 20 Swiss and British fi­nan­cial in­dus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all rel­e­vant sec­tors took part in the event: bank­ing, in­vest­ment, in­sur­ance, asset man­age­ment and fi­nan­cial mar­ket in­fra­struc­ture. 

Not only the bi­lat­eral fu­ture re­la­tions were dis­cussed, but also is­sues re­lated to the ex­pected end of the tran­si­tion pe­riod be­tween the EU and the UK (e.g. equiv­a­lence de­ci­sions). The im­por­tance of cross-sec­tor and fu­ture-ori­ented is­sues was also un­der­lined (in­clud­ing data flows, skilled labour, fin­tech, sus­tain­able in­vest­ing). 

After Corona-re­lated de­lays, the bi­lat­eral re­la­tion­ship with the UK is now mov­ing for­ward. To en­sure that a high mo­men­tum can be main­tained through­out the en­tire ne­go­ti­a­tion process, close in­volve­ment of the af­fected busi­ness sec­tors on both sides of the Eng­lish Chan­nel re­mains of great im­por­tance.