March 2010 edition
Table of contents
Editorial by Philippe Lüdi, Entris Banking
Rough winds of competition among financial centers
The Swiss Bankers Association, Swiss Insurance Association, Swiss Funds Association and SIX Group, as the primary financial center players, in 2007 developed jointly a future strategy for the first time. Within the international environment, where is the financial market situated today, particularly considering the effects of the financial crisis? Dr. Urs Rüegsegger, CEO SIX Group, takes stock.
Swiss Value Chain: National Bank broadens participation
The Swiss National Bank has decided to expand access for participation in the giro, SIC and repo system by January 1, 2010 to include specific marketplace participants without a banking or securities brokering license.
News from the payment traffic committees
The time invested by the Payments Committee Switzerland in 2009 alone amounted to more than 500 work days for various standardization tasks concerning cashless payment traffic. Dozens of experts from the Swiss financial industry are involved in this and other national financial market payment traffic bodies. They will continue to have to grapple with permanent topics like the IBAN, SEPA, XML, and BCP, but with new challenges such as e-Payment issues, as well.
German/Austrian/Swiss working group cooperation proves successful
For almost two years now, an informal working group comprised of German, Austrian and Swiss representatives has been meeting regularly to address the harmonization of ISO 20022 payment message standards to be implemented for German-speaking countries.
New SWIFT architecture proves productive
With the opening of the SWIFT computer center in Switzerland at the end of 2009, payment messages from Switzerland are no longer stored in the USA unless the counterpart account is in the USA.
New continuing education for banking successfully established
Towards the end of 2004, the Swiss Bankers Association introduced a change within the banking and finance-related continuing education system. The first Swiss Finance Institute graduates in Banking Economics successfully completed the new course of study in October of 2009. During the program, payment traffic topics were also imparted using a hands-on approach.
