Switzerland opened a dedicated stablecoin and crypto licensing overhaul

Switzerland put a new framework on the table

On October 22, 2025, Switzerland’s Federal Council opened a consultation on amendments to the Financial Institutions Act that would create separate licensing routes for payment instrument institutions and crypto-institutions. The proposal was not a final law. It was a government-backed draft, open for comment through February 6, 2026, intended to bring stablecoin issuance and services involving other cryptoassets into a more explicit supervisory structure.

The distinction mattered. Switzerland already had a fintech licence, introduced in 2018, and statutory rules for distributed-ledger technology that took effect in 2021. The Federal Council said a December 2022 evaluation had nevertheless identified further changes needed for competitiveness and consumer protection as other jurisdictions adopted crypto supervision and international standards developed.

A stablecoin route built around payment institutions

Under the consultation, the payment instrument institution category would replace the existing fintech licence. Like the prior regime, it would cover taking customer funds without paying interest or using those funds for active lending. The proposed changes would segregate accepted client funds if an institution failed and remove the CHF 100 million ceiling on client deposits.

This category would also become the route for issuing what the government called stable crypto-based payment instruments. The official fact sheet defined those instruments as cryptoassets issued in Switzerland, designed to maintain a stable value against one government currency and carrying a right to reimbursement. Issuers would have to meet additional requirements and publish a white paper, described by the government as an information sheet. The draft also set out more detailed anti-money-laundering duties for stablecoin issuance.

Those provisions were consequential because they joined scale, redemption, disclosure and insolvency treatment in one proposed licence. Removing the deposit ceiling could permit larger payment businesses, while segregation was intended to keep customer funds outside an institution’s bankruptcy estate. That was a regulatory design proposal, however—not evidence that any stablecoin was safer, fully adopted or newly authorized on October 22, 2025.

A separate perimeter for crypto services

The second proposed category, crypto-institutions, addressed services involving “cryptoassets for trading.” The government’s fact sheet said the category excluded utility tokens under existing FINMA practice, financial instruments, certain proposed stable crypto-based financial instruments and bank deposits; it also included stablecoins issued outside Switzerland.

Licensing and operating requirements would be modeled largely on those for securities firms but made narrower because these institutions would not provide services in financial instruments. The Federal Council also proposed conflict-of-interest requirements for crypto service providers. In institutional terms, this was an attempt to regulate intermediaries around tradable cryptoassets without simply treating every covered asset as a security.

The proposal therefore mattered more as market structure than as a same-day trading catalyst. It described who could issue a qualifying Swiss stablecoin, how customer funds might be protected and which service providers would face a dedicated authorization regime. No verified evidence in the dated record establishes that the consultation caused a move in bitcoin, ether or any stablecoin, so no price reaction is attributed here.

What was unresolved on October 22

The consultation still had to collect comments, undergo revision and proceed through Switzerland’s legislative process. Definitions, scope and operating obligations could change. The Federal Council’s fact sheet said a dispatch to Parliament would come in the second half of 2026 at the earliest, placing enactment beyond the event-day record.

A legal analysis published on October 23, 2025, confirmed the two-category reading and highlighted proposed disclosure and consumer-protection obligations. That next-day interpretation helps explain the draft but does not convert it into binding law. The central verified fact remains narrower: on October 22, 2025, Switzerland opened a formal consultation for a dedicated stablecoin and crypto-institution framework.