CRO Circle Dinner Romandie: AI in the Swiss financial sector: Navigating regulatory currents and legal challenges

Summary 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the landscape of financial services, offering unprecedented opportunities for innovation and efficiency. From fraud detection and risk management to personalized customer experiences and automated trading, AI is revolutionizing how financial institutions operate. While AI promises significant benefits in productivity and growth, it also presents unique legal and regulatory challenges that must be addressed. As we navigate this AI-driven future, the financial sector must strike a balance between harnessing AI’s potential and managing its associated risks.

On December 18, 2024, FINMA published its Guidance on governance and risk management when using artificial intelligence. Furthermore, in the course of Q1 2025, the Swiss Federal Administration is expected to publish a proposal for a Swiss approach to the regulation of AI. The concrete impact of these regulatory developments will be addressed in the speech.

The speech will focus especially on

• Regulatory developments in EU and in Switzerland
• Specific areas of risks, such as:
  Data protection risks
  Copyright risks
• Risk mitigants, such as contractual protection mechanisms
• Analysis of concrete use cases

Keynote

• Philipp Fischer, Partner at OBERSON ABELS SA.
  Philipp graduated from the University of Geneva in 2004. He was admitted to the Geneva Bar in 2007. In 2009, he earned a LL.M. at Harvard Law School. After having worked in major law firms in New York, Zurich and Geneva (2010 – 2016), he co-founded the law firm OBERSON ABELS Ltd in 2016.
  Philipp has been advising financial institutions (in particular banks, securities houses, insurance companies, collective investment schemes, trustees and independent asset managers) on Swiss banking, financial and data protection regulations for over 15 years.
  Philipp is a member of the Executive Committee of the CAS Digital Finance Law (University of Geneva). He is a member of the Continued Legal Education Commission of the Geneva Bar Association and of the Geneva Bar Exam Commission. He also serves on
  the board of the Harvard Law School Association of Europe.

Agenda

18:30 Welcome drinks
19:15 Take seat at dinner table
19:30 Welcome speech (Jean-Pierre Colombara)
19:35 Appetizers
20:00 Keynote speech (Philipp Fischer)
20:40 Main Course and Dessert
21:30 End of event

Swiss Risk Association in Romandie

The Swiss Risk Association (SRA) is a non-profit organisation and open forum for risk management. Through events, discussions and knowledge transfer, the SRA strengthens Switzerland’s position as a financial competence centre.

The Swiss Risk Association was created 10 years ago and was mainly covering the Swiss German Part of Switzerland. In order to expand our organization within the French part of Switzerland, we created a new Chapter “Romandie”, which was successfully launched last year. As part of the development in the Romandie, we are excited to bring an unforgettable evening and exclusive networking opportunities at the CRO Circle Dinner. This new event format has been a great success in Zurich and therefore, we are excited to have one of such prestigious event in “Romandie”.

The goals of the Romandie Chapter are to develop the exchange of knowhow and networking opportunities via the organization of Chapter Event covering various Risk topics, in the areas of Private banking, asset management and commodities trading etc.

About CRO circle

The CRO Circle institutionalizes the need to debate thoughts and ideas with your C- and Board level colleagues informally. It helps you to identify risk topics that you didn’t think of yet. It provides you with very exclusive networking opportunities and surely new friendships. The “CRO Circle” targets the most senior risk managers, the leaders who are responsible to identify and manage the risk for a company comprehensively. A CRO Circle seat is available as a part of our Corporate Packages.