Can a wealth manager put client data into ChatGPT? Professional secrecy under the Financial Institutions Act
Monday, half past seven. A portfolio manager pastes a client's positions and a note on their succession plans into ChatGPT to draft the quarterly letter. It reads well. It also names the client, their heirs and every asset they hold. Where is that now?
The short answer: for a portfolio manager or a trustee, what clients entrust is a professional secret under the Financial Institutions Act, and even a careless disclosure is punishable. An AI tool is only an option under a contract that keeps the secret, in a country the law accepts, used by people who know the rules.
Checked against the law on 30 September 2026
Even by mistake?
- CHF 250'000
A fine of up to CHF 250,000 for revealing a client secret through negligence, under the Financial Institutions Act. No intent needed (art. 69 FinIA).
- 3 years
The maximum custodial sentence for doing it on purpose, and up to 5 years when someone gains from it. The duty lasts after the job ends (art. 69 FinIA).
- US law
US providers can be required to hand data they control to US authorities, even when it is stored in Switzerland (CLOUD Act).
The checklist
0 of 10 checked
Portfolio managers, trustees, managers of collective assets, fund management companies and securities firms are financial institutions. Managing only for companies of one's own group, or for family as the ordinance defines it, is exempt; ordinary client relationships don't qualify (art. 2 FinIA, arts. 3 and 4 FinIO). Data protection applies either way.
Relationship managers, assistants and back office included. Look at browser extensions, phone apps and expense claims: the tool you don't know about is the one that breaches secrecy.
Positions, statements, KYC files, beneficial owners, tax status, succession plans. Every one of them can identify a client.
A free or personal account runs on consumer terms. A business plan comes with a different contract. Which one is each person really using?
Some consumer plans may use conversations to train their models, and keep them for a while, unless a setting is off. Read the terms of the plan in use, not the homepage.
A company that handles client data for you is what the Data Protection Act calls a processor. That's allowed with a contract, if it only does what you could do yourself and keeps the data secure, and if no duty of secrecy forbids it (art. 9 FADP).
Many AI tools process data in the United States. Sending client data there needs a legal basis, for example Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework certification or standard data protection clauses (arts. 16 and 17 FADP).
Replace names, account numbers and addresses when you can. A portfolio, a family structure or a rare asset can still identify a client, so it doesn't replace the other checks.
Which tools, for which tasks, with which data, and what never goes in. A page people can find is a page they can follow.
Negligence is enough for a fine, so the rules have to reach everyone: explain them, repeat them for every newcomer, and give them a tool they're allowed to use.
Ticked them all? Rules that exist only in your head don't stop anyone. The next step is to write them down for your team: the kit has a one-page policy to adapt. Get the kit
Which tasks can go where?
The kit sorts six everyday tasks in wealth management. Two of them:
- Summarising public market news
- A public tool is fine.
- Drafting a general market commentary
- A public tool is fine, then check the figures.
- Drafting a client's quarterly letter
- In the kit
- Summarising KYC documents
- In the kit
- Analysing a client's portfolio
- In the kit
- Preparing a succession or trust memo
- In the kit
What the Act punishes
Revealing a secret entrusted to someone as an officer, employee, agent or liquidator of a financial institution, or learned in that role, is punishable by up to three years' custodial sentence or a monetary penalty; up to five years when someone gains from it; and by a fine of up to CHF 250,000 when it happens through negligence. Passing on or exploiting a secret revealed that way is punishable too, and the duty continues after the job ends (art. 69 FinIA).
Data protection applies as well
Handing client data to a provider without the conditions of article 9 paragraphs 1 and 2, or sending it abroad without the protection of article 16 and outside the exceptions of article 17, can be fined up to CHF 250,000. That fine targets the person responsible, for intentional breaches, on complaint (art. 61 FADP).
What works in practice
A common setup has three tiers: public AI tools for public information and general commentary, nothing about a client in any tool your contracts don't cover, and a private AI run in Switzerland for letters, KYC summaries and portfolio work.
Where does your firm stand?
The self-check takes two minutes and says which first step fits. Or talk it through in a free 15-minute call.
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Your situation
What AI should do for you, and what it must never see.
- 5–10 min
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The next step
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