SwissAML · Frequently asked questions
What SwissAML does for Swiss financial intermediaries, and how it supports the duties your firm carries under the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA).
SwissAML is compliance software for Swiss financial intermediaries — trust companies, fiduciaries, and asset managers. It gives your firm one place to identify clients, determine beneficial owners, assess risk, and document the file, so the duties your firm carries under the Swiss Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) are supported from end to end. Your firm remains responsible for its compliance decisions; SwissAML provides the structure, the record, and the audit trail that substantiate them.
SwissAML serves the Swiss firms that carry anti-money-laundering (AML) duties: trust companies, fiduciaries, and asset managers acting as financial intermediaries under the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA). From the 2026 revision, in force 1 October 2026, it also serves the advisers — lawyers, notaries, and fiduciaries — who form and administer trusts, foundations, and companies (Art. 2 paras. 3bis and 3ter GwG).
SwissAML supports the core due-diligence duties the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) places on your firm: verifying the identity of the contracting party (Art. 3 GwG), determining the beneficial owner (Art. 4 GwG), applying risk-based due diligence — including higher-risk relationships such as politically exposed persons (PEPs) (Art. 6 GwG) — and documenting and retaining the file (Art. 7 GwG). The duties remain your firm's; SwissAML is the working surface on which they are met and evidenced.
The Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) requires a financial intermediary to verify the identity of the contracting party on the basis of a document of evidentiary value when a business relationship is established (Art. 3 GwG). SwissAML captures each party to the mandate, records the identifying evidence, and tracks what is still outstanding — so your firm's Know Your Customer (KYC) and customer due diligence (CDD) work is complete and demonstrable before the relationship opens.
The Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) requires your firm to identify the beneficial owner of a legal entity — the natural persons who ultimately control it, directly or indirectly, through at least 25 per cent of the capital or voting rights or otherwise (Art. 2a para. 3 GwG) — and to obtain a written declaration where required (Art. 4 GwG). SwissAML lets your firm model the structure in the roles the practitioner already uses, applies the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) threshold test to those roles, and records the declaration — so control is captured in the relationship's own terms.
After a business relationship ends or a transaction is completed, the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) requires the records to be retained for a minimum of ten years (Art. 7 para. 3 GwG). At the point of approval SwissAML records an audit and client-data snapshot and performs the required screening, each kept to that ten-year standard — so the evidence behind every decision stays available for later review, without a manual filing step for your firm.