The flurry of activities by the Swiss crypto community has its downsides – at least what concerns the regulatory aspect of it all. The investigations that Finma has launched led to several enforcement procedures, criminal charges and entries on its warning lists.
The Swiss financial market regulator (Finma) took a close look at the Swiss crypto industry in 2019. What caused the biggest concern were the evaluations of so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs), the body said in its release statement for the annual report on Thursday.
Finma analyzed some 60 ICOs last year – and detected violations of money-laundering laws in ten of those. It filed criminal complaints against the responsible actors. A further eight cases led to names being added to the Finma warning list.
Abuse of the Term «Bank»
Finma launched enforcement proceedings against three companies. It concluded its case against Envion a year ago and noted several serious infringements of the supervisory requirements.
Marc Branson's Finma also took measures against firms that violated the banking laws and that had received deposits from the public. Others were told to remove the reference to being a «bank» from their PR documents or references to non-existent Finma licences.
Criminal Intent on the Rise
Finma also conducted enforcement procedures against trading platform providers and storage services for token. One of the service providers for the trade and storage of tokens had violated the banking and stock exchange laws which led to criminal proceedings.
Another enforcement procedure was launched for the illegal trading with tokens. Finma registered an increase in the number of internet platforms dedicated to such illegal services and fraudulent offers.
