Digital Finance: Federal Council sets out areas of action for coming years in Switzerland, including RegTech and Cybersecurity

The Swiss financial center is currently evolving due to the continuous digitization process. Economic, financial, and political stability and security and trust remain critical geographical criteria. Regardless, new components, such as a company's or government's ability to leverage new technology, are becoming increasingly crucial in the future.

The Federal Council directed the FDF (Federal Department of Finance) to provide a report on digital finance, identifying the Confederation's role and particular areas of action due to the pace and radical nature of the transformation. The paper is meant to serve as a foundation for additional in-depth work in the following years and establish appropriate priorities.

For Switzerland as a corporate site, the financial market transition process presents both opportunities and disadvantages. In terms of risk, new technology may enhance vulnerability to cyberattacks, promote currency manipulation, or make money laundering and terrorist funding more challenging to prevent. Recent cyberattacks in Switzerland have shown the necessity of addressing cybersecurity not only within tech companies. 

The main targets are: 

1. Offering the greatest possible regulatory framework and being open to continual evaluation and change depending on needs

2. Serving as active conversation partners for diverse stakeholders

3. Focusing on cross-cutting challenges linked to data, clouds, distributed ledger technology (DLT), cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), green fintech, education, and research that affect competitiveness, financial stability concerns, client protection, and the Swiss financial center's reputation.

Source: https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/70126.pdf