{"id":1162,"date":"2026-03-02T05:53:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2026-03-02T05:53:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:53:30","slug":"switzerland-finma-revokes-licence-of-merchant-bank-for-aml-and-sanctions-compliance-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/2026\/03\/02\/switzerland-finma-revokes-licence-of-merchant-bank-for-aml-and-sanctions-compliance-failures\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland &#8211; FINMA revokes licence of merchant bank for AML and sanctions compliance failures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Swiss financial services regulator has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finma.ch\/news\/2026\/02\/20260226-mm-mbaer\/\">put out a press release<\/a> announcing its decision, taken several weeks ago, to revoke the licence of MBaer Merchant Bank AG for AML and sanctions compliance failings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Initially the bank appealed this decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the wake of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fincen.gov\/news\/news-releases\/treasury-proposes-rule-sever-swiss-bank-mbaers-access-us-financial-system\">US regulator FinCEN<\/a> announcing that it proposed to name the bank as a &#8220;financial institution of primary money laundering concern&#8221;, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/swiss-bank-mbaer-gets-shut-down-over-alleged-sanction-breach\/91010974\">bank has withdrawn the appeal<\/a> against FINMA&#8217;s decision, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbaerbank.com\/eng\">a liquidator has now been appointed<\/a> to oversee the bank&#8217;s liquidation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Swiss financial services regulator has put out a press release announcing its decision, taken several weeks ago, to revoke the licence of MBaer Merchant Bank AG for AML and sanctions compliance failings. Initially the bank appealed this decision. In the wake of the US regulator FinCEN announcing that it proposed to name the bank &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/2026\/03\/02\/switzerland-finma-revokes-licence-of-merchant-bank-for-aml-and-sanctions-compliance-failures\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Switzerland &#8211; FINMA revokes licence of merchant bank for AML and sanctions compliance failures&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":656,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,71],"tags":[20,38],"ppma_author":[7],"class_list":["post-1162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-104","category-financial-services","tag-financial-sanctions","tag-switzerland"],"authors":[{"term_id":7,"user_id":656,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mhandley","display_name":"Mark Handley","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2023\/09\/handleymark-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}