Digital prime broker Sage Capital Management has opened an office in Zug, Switzerland, after securing membership of the VQF, the country’s oldest self-regulatory organisation recognised by FINMA, the company said on Tuesday.
The SRO/VQF status registers Sage Capital as a financial intermediary under Switzerland’s Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA). In simple terms, it gives the firm a compliant Swiss wrapper for onboarding institutional clients and offering spot digital asset trading and lending services. Target clients include hedge funds, asset managers and professional trading firms, according to the company.
The designation sits within Switzerland’s parabanking framework, which requires professional financial intermediaries that do not hold a full banking or securities firm licence to join a FINMA-recognised SRO. VQF, which is itself based in Zug, supervises members’ AML due diligence obligations, including client identification, beneficial ownership verification and suspicious activity reporting to Switzerland’s Money Laundering Reporting Office (MROS).
This is an AMLA-framework authorisation. It does not indicate a Swiss banking, custody or securities-dealer licence unless separately confirmed.
Swiss oversight
Supervisory Board member Rupertus Rothenhaeuser will oversee the Swiss entity. Rothenhaeuser joined Sage Capital’s board in November 2025, bringing experience from senior roles at BitMEX Switzerland, Crypto Finance Brokerage AG in Zurich and SIX Digital Exchange. He is currently Chief Commercial Officer at e-money institute AllUnity.
When his appointment was announced in November, CEO Nathan Sage said: “With so many large financial institutions yet to tap into the crypto space, this is the ideal time for Rupertus to come on board. His experience combines best practice from the trad-fi space with the agility of the digital space.”
Rothenhaeuser said at the time that Sage Capital was “one of very few regulated digital prime brokers” and that its “focus on simplifying institutional access to digital assets makes them stand out.”
The Zug office now serves as the hub for Sage Capital’s FINMA-recognised Swiss operations, while the firm maintains its primary infrastructure in the UK.
