White paper 2021 – Security Tokens Offerings in Switzerland
Recent social trends and technological developments – such as digitalization, automation and decentralization – are subjecting society to a paradigm shift leading to the creation of a new business ecosystem and opportunities that have the potential of establishing Switzerland as one of the epicenters of this ongoing revolution, thanks to several factors and in particular to the proactivity of federal and several cantonal authorities.
The SCA is a neutral, nonprofit association aiming at supporting the crowdfunding industry in Switzerland by promoting collective awareness on the potential of crowdfunding and supporting the development of a robust and pragmatic federal regulatory framework for its members. The SCA pursues its mission inter alia by organizing events (e.g. seminars and networking opportunities) and representing its members’ interest at the federal level. SCA published several standpoints during the consultation process in relation to FinTech regulation and had meetings with the federal authorities on such topic. The SCA also published two previous white papers: on crowdfunding (2015), respectively Real Estate crowdfunding (2017), both available on the SCA website www. swisscrowdfundingassociation.ch.
White papers1 are position statements which aim at drawing the attention of the SCA members’ and network on upcoming high-potential technical topics. The present 2021 white paper (the “White Paper”) follows this approach and analyses in details the Swiss ecosystem and regulatory framework of crowdfunding activities in Switzerland in the form of a STO.
Given that STOs are a mean of financing falling under the definition of crowdfunding and that we strongly believe that STOs will be used more and more frequently by Swiss companies seeking to raise funds, the SCA has decided to dedicate a white paper to this subject in order for its members and network to stay at the forefront of the crowdfunding industry’s developments.
More specifically, the purpose of this White Paper is to introduce the various types of STOs observed in Switzerland and to provide information about their structuring (incl. main regulatory requirements and necessary documentation). Some statistics and information in this White Paper refers to crowdfunding (not specifically STO), given that the Hochschule of Lucerne is monitoring crowdfunding in Switzerland since 2015. However, we thought it was useful to provide some information regarding crowdfunding more generally (not only STO, given in particular the excellent quality of information gathered and statistics provided by the Hochschule of Lucerne.
