White Lighthouse Investment Management (WLIM) Inc and White Lighthouse Investment Management Sarl are both regulated by FINMA, the Swiss Financial market supervisory authority. For our clients and staff who live in Switzerland, work in Switzerland or work with clients in Switzerland, there are specific requirements that we must fulfil. At the bottom of this page you will find links to help you find where you can review which firms are registered with FINMA and which advisors are listed in one of the Swiss Advisor Registries.
FINMA encourages financial service providers based in or serving clients in Switzerland to make their clients are aware of the risks associated with financial instruments. Advisors should ensure clients have a thorough understanding of these risks before making investment decisions or hiring a portfolio manager to make decisions on their behalf. While we at White Lighthouse are regularly communicating information to our clients through disclosure documents, contracts, investment policy statements, newsletters, and other more personal communications, another document that FINMA recommends for clients is the Swiss Bankers Association Brochure, "Risks Involved in Trading Financial Instruments".
We would like to remind our clients of the existence of this document and while we understand it is long and cumbersome to read, we encourage all our clients to stay educated and to come to us with questions at any time. Below you can find some additional context of the Swiss Regulatory environment for Financial Service Providers:
FINMA's Role: FINMA's guidelines stress the importance of transparency and client education in financial services. They require financial service providers to be aware of the characteristics and risks of the financial instruments they offer and the require individual and firms to go through extensive training and have a regular and documents compliance program.
SBA's Brochure: The "Risks Involved in Trading Financial Instruments" brochure from the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) provides general information on risks and is a useful resource clients and advisors alike for understanding those risks.
Advisors' Responsibilities: Advisors must ensure their clients have a sufficient understanding of the risks before making investment decisions. They can use various means to fulfil this obligation, including:
Providing general risk information: This should include information about the specific financial instruments being considered and any associated risks.
Disclosing costs and fees: Clients should be aware of all costs associated with the investment.
Referring to relevant documents: This may include the SBA brochure or other relevant documents. It is suggested but not a mandatory requirement to provide a link to the SBA brochure specifically.
FINMA’s website provides extensive information on all the firms licensed and registered in Switzerland. At this link, https://www.finma.ch/en/finma-public/authorised-institutions-individuals-and-products/, you can find all the firms authorized in Switzerland by FINMA. For example, by typing in White Lighthouse (or any firm name), you will see WLIM Sarl listed as a portfolio manager in Switzerland and supervised by the Self-Regulatory Body OSFIN. You can also see that WLIM Inc has an authorized Representative office, as a portfolio manager, in Lausanne. Scrolling further down, you will find regularly updated lists, by category, of firms regulated by FINMA. At the same link above, you can also find some individuals and firms that appear on warning lists.
Additionally, all our advisors in WLIM Inc. who serve clients in Switzerland are listed in one of the three advisor registries, specifically https://registre.arif.ch/en/registre/. The other two advisor registries are:
https://www.regservices.ch/en/client-advisor-search/
https://www.reg-fix.ch/en/advisers-search
As of May 2025, WLIM Inc. is one of only seven firms foreign to Switzerland that have gone through the process of registration, and the only one from the United States. Many advisors, compliance officers and others outside of Switzerland, and even some inside of Switzerland are unaware of the regulations on serving Swiss clients or sadly are voluntarily flouting the rules.
To legally serve clients in Switzerland for portfolio management, investment advice, the distribution of products and the execution of financial transactions, virtually every individual and/or their employer must be properly registered. At WLIM we take our compliance obligations very seriously to serve our clients and employees properly and thank our Swiss Risk and Compliance officer for his diligence in supporting our firm’s compliance efforts and educating our team.
