The Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA has liquidated MBaer Merchant Bank. 700 customers with 4.9 billion Swiss francs are affected.
The news about the small Zurich financial institution MBaer Merchant Bank is coming thick and fast.
First, the Americans attacked the financial institution for money laundering for Russia and Iran, and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA made a court case public.
Court helped bank
Logically, the mini-bank had defended itself against this before the Federal Administrative Court – but on Friday evening, FINMA announced the liquidation.
Three weeks ago, FINMA had already withdrawn MBaer Merchant Bank AG’s licence with immediate effect and ordered its liquidation as a result.
The bank’s appeal was granted suspensive effect and FINMA was prohibited by the court from communicating and carrying out the liquidation. But then the Americans jumped in with the Swiss regulator, as muula.ch reported.
Enforcement since 2024
The bank withdrew its appeal against the FINMA proceedings today, Friday, which means that the orders of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority will take effect.
FINMA has appointed Daniel Staehelin and Lukas Bopp, both from Kellerhals Carrard KIG Basel, as liquidators.
The burden of proof against the bank is steep. In 2024, FINMA opened enforcement proceedings against MBaer Merchant Bank AG and appointed an investigator.
This became necessary after she had carried out clarifications at the bank with customer groups related to Russia sanctions or in connection with criminal proceedings.
Compliance virtually non-existent
According to FINMA, the study showed that 80 percent of business relationships had increased risks. Most recently, 98 percent of the assets received came from high-risk customers.
The investigator found that in dealing with these business relationships, the bank repeatedly overrode recommendations from its compliance department without comprehensible justification.
It systematically did not sufficiently clarify the background to the business relationships and the transactions and in some cases did not comply with its AMLA reporting obligation at all or significantly too late.
Circumvention of asset freezes
Likewise, in several cases, the bank had even carried out transactions for customers who were on sanctions lists or whose funds were blocked by domestic criminal authorities, it said.
Moreover, there were concrete indications that MBaer Merchant Bank AG had actively supported customers in circumventing official asset freezes.
The licensing requirements of a guarantee of flawless business activities and appropriate administrative organisation were no longer met, FINMA now explained.
Long watching of the supervisor
But the regulator had only granted the banking license in December 2018 to the now-incriminated management around Michael Baer – perhaps the people were not actually in a position to run a Swiss financial institution at all if the offenses turn out to be as serious as authorities state.
Michael Baer is the great-grandson of the founder of the Zurich-based private bank Julius Baer. But in 2015 he decided to set up a new commercial bank.
In addition, it remains unclear why FINMA has known about the abuses at the bank since 2024, but only reacted just three weeks ago.
More question marks
At the end of 2025, the bank had total client assets of 4.9 billion Swiss francs and had almost 700 client relationships.
According to the communiqué, the bank had over 60 employees.
What will happen to all of the customers and employees now remains open for the time being.
February, 27th, 2026/kut./ena.
