Regulation of Crowdlending: The Case of Switzerland

Abstract

The increasing interdependence of firms and individuals throughout the world facilitates the development of the crowdlending market. Crowdlending is an emerging source of financing involving open calls to the public, generally via internet, to finance with loans individuals or companies (Meyer, 2007). The major role of crowdlending activities has been to bring new energy to a global economy that is unable to catch its breath following the recent financial crises (Berger, 2009). North America leads the world in crowdlending volumes, representing 58% of the world’s market. But the global strong growth is due, in part, to the rise of Asia as a major crowdlending player with 21% of the world’s market, putting the region slightly ahead of Europe (Pignon. 2015). As of today, Switzerland has not adopted specific regulation governing the practice of crowdlending, but the regulator has issued a fact sheet on this topic, informing the stakeholders of the crowdlending industry that some of their activities may be subject to banking regulation (Dietrich, 2015). In this context, this article get a general overview of the regulations adopted abroad, in particular in the USA and in the European Union, where countries such as the UK or France chose to adopt a more detailed regulation, some with financial limits applicable to crowdlending campaigns or with specific requirements regarding who would be authorized to invest in crowdlending campaigns or soft regulation in the form of Best Practices.