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Swiss wealth managers are urging the government to halt the launch of a vast new register of company owners after hackers stole similar data on thousands of people from neighbouring Liechtenstein.
The Swiss Association of Wealth Managers has asked Bern to pause the October 1 rollout of its new “transparency register”, which will be accessible by designated authorities and financial institutions subject to anti-money laundering rules but not directly by the public.
The association warned the government that concentrating information on the ultimate owners of more than 500,000 companies and other legal entities in one place would create an attractive target for cyber criminals.
The Swiss Bankers Association has separately raised concerns over cyber security and data protection relating to the register, which has been under development for three years in a country known as a haven for often secretive wealth.
The financiers’ intervention follows a major breach of Liechtenstein’s equivalent register in late July, in which unknown hackers stole beneficial ownership data relating to about 31,000 companies, foundations and trusts. Authorities have yet to identify the attackers or establish their motive.
Switzerland is creating the register as part of efforts to strengthen its defences against money laundering and meet international standards ahead of a review by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force next year.
From October, companies and other legal entities will be required to report the individuals who ultimately control them to the central federal database. As well as names, the register is due to include data on dates of birth, nationalities, postcodes and places of residence.
The stakes are particularly high for Switzerland, whose financial sector accounts for about 9 per cent of GDP and remains one of the world’s biggest centres for cross-border private wealth.
In a letter to Swiss justice minister Beat Jans seen by the FT, the wealth managers’ association warned this week that Switzerland was creating an “extremely attractive target for cyber criminals” by collecting highly sensitive ownership information in a central database.
Vivien Jain, the association’s chief executive, told the FT the new register should be paused for an official security assessment following the attack in Liechtenstein. “The reputation of our financial centre is at stake,” she added.
The SBA had similarly expressed concerns about the register’s safety, said multiple people familiar with the situation.
“Transparency registers contain highly sensitive information and therefore require particularly strong safeguards . . . it will be crucial that the highest standards of data protection and cyber security are maintained,” the SBA said.
The government said the law mandating the register “will enter into force on October 1, 2026”, adding that “the incident in Liechtenstein demonstrates once again the importance of the planned measures to ensure IT security”.
The Federal Office of Justice, part of the justice ministry, said it was “taking this security incident seriously and is in contact with the Liechtenstein authorities”.
The pushback is likely to draw scrutiny given Switzerland’s history as a haven for secretive wealth. Although Bern has dismantled much of its traditional bank secrecy regime under international pressure, campaigners have long argued that greater transparency over who ultimately controls companies is essential to combat money laundering and other financial crime.
“Delaying implementation would not mean abandoning transparency. It would mean ensuring that transparency is pursued without creating disproportionate risks,” said Fabio Poma, managing director of wealth manager WMM Group and vice-president of the Swiss Association of Wealth Managers.
Switzerland is tightening its regime just as the US is moving in the opposite direction. On August 11, less than two weeks after the Liechtenstein breach, the US Treasury made permanent an earlier retreat from ownership reporting, exempting domestic companies and US persons and saying it would delete information on Americans already collected.
“If even the US has reconsidered its model, it is legitimate to ask why Bern, particularly following the warning signal from Liechtenstein, should necessarily proceed with TranspaReg as early as October 1,” Poma added.
Jamie Vrijhof, managing partner of Zurich-based wealth manager WHVP, said the developments in Liechtenstein and the US strengthened the case for Switzerland to hold off.
“For me, the benefits are very close to zero, and the risks are potentially extremely high,” she said.
One option suggested by wealth managers could be to allow viewers to retrieve only certain information rather than accessing the entire database.
But Patrick Humbert-Verri, chief operating officer of Swiss wealth manager Probus Pleion, was sceptical that restricting access would eliminate the underlying risk. “The access will not be public, but the information will be somewhere,” he said. “If there is a big leak, it will be exactly the same story, but this time in Switzerland.”
