Switzer­land and the United King­dom send a strong sig­nal for open mar­kets for fi­nan­cial ser­vices

Switzer­land and the UK are among the strongest fi­nan­cial cen­tres and largest ex­porters of fi­nan­cial ser­vices world­wide. At the same time, they share long-stand­ing and close eco­nomic ties. Thanks to a se­ries of bi­lat­eral agree­ments signed be­tween De­cem­ber 2018 and Feb­ru­ary 2019, re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries have been largely se­cured even be­yond Brexit. By sign­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion of in­tent to quickly enter into ne­go­ti­a­tions on the mu­tual open­ing of mar­kets for fi­nan­cial ser­vices providers, Switzer­land and the UK are now tak­ing an­other step for­ward in prepar­ing for the pe­riod after UK' s with­drawal from the Eu­ro­pean sin­gle mar­ket. Im­proved mar­ket ac­cess should be based on the mu­tual recog­ni­tion of na­tional reg­u­la­tions.

"We are very happy about this step, as both coun­tries will ben­e­fit sig­nif­i­cantly from the in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of cross-bor­der fi­nan­cial ser­vices. This de­c­la­ra­tion of in­tent should now quickly be fol­lowed by re­sults", says Heinz Kar­rer, Pres­i­dent of economiesu­isse.

Busi­ness and sec­tor as­so­ci­a­tions from both coun­tries had long been ad­vo­cat­ing for the cre­ation of bet­ter frame­work con­di­tions for cross-bor­der fi­nan­cial ser­vices. On April 28th 2020, they pub­lished their ideas in a joint po­si­tion paper. Busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tives of both coun­tries are now ex­pect­ing that an agree­ment on the mu­tual recog­ni­tion of fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tions will be ne­go­ti­ated as soon as pos­si­ble.