L’externalisation de services dans le domaine bancaire et financier

In recent years, Swiss financial intermediaries have increasingly entered into contractual arrangements with external service providers to outsource certain activities, for example the development and maintenance of their IT platform. From a Swiss regulatory perspective, the outsourcing of activities is governed by two circulars issued by the Swiss financial regulator FINMA. Pursuant to the position taken by the regulator, a Swiss regulated financial institution remains fully responsible, from a regulatory perspective, for the outsourced activities. The FINMA circulars also set forth certain minimum standards as regards the supervision of the outsourced activities, the information of the concerned clients and the contractual arrangements to be entered into with the external service providers. From a contractual standpoint, it is crucial to define the scope of the services to be rendered by the service provider and the (financial and non-financial) consequences in case the services…