For the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma), this was a massive administrative task: with the Financial Institutions Act that came into force at the beginning of 2020, the activity of asset managers or trustees became subject to approval.

This meant that thousands of asset managers had to submit an application for approval to Finma. The deadline for this was a year and a half ago, on December 31, 2022.

Massive Staff Expansion

Finma massively invested in personnel to meet this challenge. Reportedly, dozens of new employees were hired.

By the end of 2022, at the deadline for existing service providers, a total of 1'699 applications had been submitted, as Finma announced in January.

70 procent Approved, 4 procent Withdrawn

By the end of 2023, Finma had approved 1'149 (70 procent) of the applications received by December 31, 2022. Sixty-three institutions (4 procent) had withdrawn their applications. Thus, 487 (26 procent) applications remained pending.

When asked by finews.ch, Finma did not disclose how many applications are still pending. It referred to the published lists, which now contain 1'402 names, and stated that the number of withdrawn applications had also increased.

Still 200 Pending Cases

This makes it clear that as of today, about 200 asset managers are still waiting for their approval.

What are the reasons for the sometimes lengthy processing time? This depends «very much on the complexity and quality of the applications as well as the cooperation of the applicant.» «Some applications are approved within a few weeks. Other applications require more in-depth clarifications and therefore take more time.»

Inyova Also Waiting

Among the asset managers that have not yet received approval is Inyova, an asset manager specializing in impact investment, founded in 2019 by former McKinsey consultants.

Finews.ch has repeatedly reported on the start-up, which has hired a former advisor to Al Gore, offers its services in Germany (where it already holds an approval from Bafin), and positions itself as an activist investor at shareholders' meetings, such as recently at Netflix, as finews.ch reported, or previously at BMW, as recorded by the «Handelszeitung.»

Various Iterations

According to individuals familiar with the matter, the delay in this case is due to the novelty of Inyova's impact investment business model from the authority's perspective, leading to various iterations of questions and answers in the approval process.

Tillmann Lang, CEO and co-founder of Inyova, said to finews.ch: «Due to Inyova's new approach to impact investing and the new regulatory requirements, it is understandable that the licensing process in such a case takes a bit longer.»

A central question remains: Will the financial market supervisory authority reduce its staff again once the approval processes are finally completed?