Supervisory system in Switzerland for the combating of money laundering and the prevention of the financing of terrorism requires membership in officially recognized Self-Regulatory Organisations (SROs), which are responsible for monitoring compliance with AML and CTF regulations.

The VQF is the leading, largest, officially recognised self-regulatory organisation pursuant to the Federal Act of 10 October 1997 on the combating of money laundering and the prevention of the financing of terrorism in the financial sector.

VQF is an association under the terms of Art. 60 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code (SCC), recorded in the Commercial Register of the Canton of Zug and enjoys the official recognition of the Federal Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) as an SRO pursuant to Art. 24 AMLA. The VQF SRO exercises legally prescribed supervisory functions towards its members.

As the oldest and largest SRO in the parabanking sector, the VQF SRO employs specialists with many years of experience in all parts of this sector, carries out periodic audits on VQF SRO members, trains VQF SRO members in matters relating to the AMLA and represents their interests with regard to amendments to the AMLA. The VQF SRO is officially recognised, regulated and supervised by FINMA, which is why this supervisory system is referred to as (legally and officially) controlled self-regulation.