The Swiss occupational pension supervisory commission OAK BV is urging pension institutions including pension funds to check whether external asset managers still need the approval from the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to manage so-called collective assets.

According to the Federal Act on Financial Institutions (FinIA), the two categories of managers of collective assets include asset managers of occupational pension schemes and of collective investment schemes.

OAK BV is also recommending investment foundations, vested benefit foundations (Freizügigkeitseinrichtung) that receive the benefits of members exiting a pension fund without joining another scheme, institutions managing third pillar pensions, and welfare funds commissioning an external manager to run all or part of their pension assets to find out if managers require a FINMA license to run collective assets.

Asset managers that received approval by OAK BV until 2019 have to submit a request to FINMA for authorisation to operate by the end of this year, according to article 74 of the FinIA regulation.

Until 2019, in fact, OAK BV was responsible for granting authorisation to managers of pension assets, including external managers such as real estate portfolio managers that had concluded an asset management agreement with an occupational pension scheme to buy and sell properties.

The OAK BV approval was based on the article 48f paragraph 5 of the Ordinance on Occupational Retirement, Survivors’ and Disability Pension Plans – BVV 2.

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