Switzerland has no EMI licence: the real equivalents in Swiss law

An e-money institution is a creature of EU internal-market law, and the directives behind it bind EU and EEA member states. Switzerland is neither, so the category was never transposed: there is no Swiss EMI register, and a "SEMI licence" does not exist either - small-EMI status is a member-state option under the same EU framework. Swiss law cuts the same activity along a different line: taking money from the public is deposit-taking under the Banking Act, whatever the wallet is called; below that, the questions are anti-money-laundering ones.

The vocabulary still gets imported. Pages ranking for these searches advertise a "Swiss EMI licence" or a "SEMI licence in Switzerland" - instruments no Swiss statute contains. Where such an offer has any substance, what actually changes hands is a company holding the Art. 1b fintech licence, an SRO-affiliated payments company, or a plain Swiss AG with no supervised status at all. Ask which of the three is on the table; it shortens the conversation.

This is the mapping we walk EU and UK founders through first: the instrument that genuinely exists, its statutory basis and the catch the imported vocabulary hides. The statutes sit on fedlex.admin.ch.

Art. 1b applies the Banking Act by analogy to firms mainly active in the financial sector that accept public deposits - or collectively custodied crypto-based assets designated by the Federal Council - up to CHF 100 million, and that neither invest the money nor pay interest on it. Revenue comes from fees, not margin; the economics of a safeguarded, non-interest-bearing e-money float translate into this instrument more directly than into anything else Swiss law offers.

The perimeter is deliberately lighter than a bank's: minimum capital of 3% of deposits with a CHF 300,000 floor, no Capital Adequacy or Liquidity Ordinance, accounting under the Code of Obligations. The discipline sits elsewhere - registered office and actual management in Switzerland, client money parked as sight deposits or top-grade liquid assets, two audit tracks, and a written warning to every client that there is no deposit insurance; a bank depositor's privilege of up to CHF 100,000 has no counterpart here. Cross the cap and a forced march begins: notify FINMA within 10 days, file a full banking application within 90.

The official numbers sit in the FINMA Fees and Charges Ordinance (FINMA-GebV, consolidation of 1 March 2024, fedlex.admin.ch): an annual basic supervisory levy of CHF 3,000 per fintech licensee, plus a usage-based additional levy. The tariff annex names no dedicated line for the licensing decision itself; where no tariff is set, the fee follows time spent at hourly rates of CHF 100-500 - so read any flat "cost of the licence" figure online as an estimate. FINMA publishes no fixed decision deadline, and adviser reporting commonly cites six to twelve-plus months end to end - market colour, not an official figure.

The border cuts symmetrically, and honest copy says so. Outside the EU and EEA, MiCA, the E-Money Directive and PSD2 do not apply - which is exactly why the perimeter above is lighter. The same border means no Swiss status, from sandbox to fintech licence, carries EU or EEA market access of any kind. Serving EU customers from a Swiss vehicle is a state-by-state third-country question or a job for an EU-licensed affiliate; equally, an EU e-money authorisation confers no right to solicit Swiss clients. Pick the jurisdiction where your customers are, not the one with the lighter forms.

The mismatch between EU vocabulary and the Swiss toolkit is now official policy business. On 22 October 2025 the Federal Council opened consultation on amending the Financial Institutions Act: payment instrument institutions would replace the fintech licence, drop the CHF 100 million cap, segregate client funds in insolvency - closing today's no-protection gap - and carry an explicit right to issue value-stable crypto-based payment instruments, framed in the government's own release as the counterpart of e-money tokens under EU law (sif.admin.ch). A second proposed category, crypto institutions, would sit alongside. Consultation closed on 6 February 2026; as of July 2026 the dispatch to Parliament is pending and Art. 1b remains the law in force. What the published material does not settle is grandfathering for existing licensees - the variable to watch before buying a licensed company instead of applying fresh.