SWITZERLAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Kilian Schärli, Reto Luthiger, Andrea Trost and Diana Lafita, MLL Legal
to a regulated digital Swiss franc in co-operation with the SNB and FINMA. However, the issuance of a retail digital Swiss franc as a replacement for the fiat currency is politically disputed and therefore not in sight. In Switzerland, there are three licensed trading venues: SIX Swiss Exchange, the traditional stock exchange of the SIX Group; SDX Trading AG, of the same group, designed for the trading of ledger-based securities – ie, securities issued on a blockchain or on another distributed ledg - er technology (DLT); and the traditional stock exchange of BX Swiss AG. However, SDX Trad - ing AG does not operate a so-called DLT trad - ing venue, which was introduced with the DLT Act in 2021. A DLT trading venue enables the trading of ledger-based securities on the block - chain and allows, with possession of the licence mentioned in the foregoing, (i) direct access for retail, (ii) the holding of ledger-based securities in central custody and (iii) clearing and settle - ment. Recently, SDX Trading AG has introduced the SDX Web3 service, which provides financial institutions with crypto custody, crypto trading and collateral services with crypto-assets. As the SIX Group is mainly governed by banks, a full decentralisation would not fit their core strategy. The third trading venue is BX Swiss AG, which is also a traditional stock exchange. BX Digital, a sister company of BX Swiss and part of the Boerse Stuttgart Group, will be granted a DLT trading venue licence from FINMA in the short term on 18 March 2025, becoming the first DLT trading facility that allows DLT securities to be traded. This development is expected to unlock an important aspect of the DLT potential of the Swiss financial market, even though the licence does not currently allow direct access to retail, but only to licensed supervised participants. In addition, BX Digital does not offer custody of
DLT securities, which must be offered by the rel - evant participants. A large proportion of the investment in crypto- assets is made into cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or Ether, which are already offered by private and cantonal banks. In contrast, special - ised crypto-native custody providers in Switzer - land support, according to a recent survey, up to 1,100 different coins and tokens. Since 2013, Bitcoin Suisse has offered investments in crypto- assets, including storage in individual vaults or collective wallets, where the latter benefits from a default guarantee from Swiss banks. Whilst the individual custody of cryptocurrencies that can be segregated in case of bankruptcy, and that are kept available for the customer at all times, does not trigger a licensing requirement under the Banking Act, the collective custody of cryptocurrencies usually requires a banking or fintech licence unless there is a default guaran - tee from a bank or another exemption applies. Developments in the field of AI AI, which represents a megatrend, is increasingly being used in the front and back offices of finan - cial institutions, such as in document analysis, compliance and fraud detection, asset and risk management, personalisation and marketing, investment research and process automatisa - tion. The first and most mature model in this field is the chatbot. Chatbots are used by most finan - cial institutions, including insurance companies (eg, in their claims handling) and banks (in their customer service lines). Recent surveys indicate that approximately two- thirds of asset managers are either planning to implement at least one generative AI (GenAI) use case this year. One of the most notable appli - cations is the ability to manage personalised portfolios, improving client satisfaction. AI tools
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