Annual Report 2022: Solid Results for SIX in a Challenging Environment

The year 2022 brought fundamental changes to the financial markets, most notably driven by the return of inflation and the increase in interest rates. The war in Ukraine, the energy crisis, recessionary trends, resurgent strains in China-US relations, and continuing instabilities caused by the pandemic posed new challenges to the financial markets and SIX. SIX actively adapted to this changing environment, and continued to build on its growth strategy.

The company further invested in its technology, its products and services, and its people to build the systems and infrastructures for the future of finance, while upholding strict cost control. SIX adapted its short-term plans, while its business strategy and its diverse product portfolio have evidenced the company’s resilience. Despite this challenging environment, SIX successfully grew the business in three of four business units at constant exchange rates. 

SIX successfully launched new products in all business units, and pushed the strategic expansion into ESG markets and digital assets. In the Financial Information business unit, SIX expanded its ESG data and services offering as part of the EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan. With a series of new offerings on SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), SIX has prepared the foundation for the future of financial market infrastructures and services based on distributed ledger technology. On 3 November, UBS issued a digital bond on SDX. It is the world’s first digital bond issued by a banking institution on a regulated digital exchange.

In the past year, SIX finalized the acquisition of the European trade repository REGIS-TR and expanded numerous services in its international custody business. In our Banking Services business unit, one of the highlights of the year was the nationwide rollout of the Swiss QR-bill. The recovery of cashless payments and ATM transactions as well as the new generation of debit cards were important drivers for additional growth.

Growth remains a prerequisite for successfully operating a global platform business. From an industry point of view, SIX operates in a dynamic and attractive market. In October 2022, the Board of Directors confirmed the strategic direction of SIX, taking the new macroeconomic situation into consideration. SIX is one of the largest European exchange groups. Its purpose is to drive the competitiveness of clients in both of home markets – Switzerland and Spain – as well as globally.

SIX will therefore continue to deliver excellent services to clients and bring innovative products to the market. Pioneering digital assets along the entire value chain and building more bridges between the distributed ledger technology of SDX and the traditional markets remains a focal point. The ESG product range, based on new tech-based solutions for aggregating, analyzing, delivering, and reporting data will grow. Cost efficiency remains a top priority.

As in past years, and given the rapidly evolving state of industry consolidation, seizing inorganic growth opportunities will remain an integral part of the growth strategy.

The systemically important role of SIX in the Swiss and Spanish financial centers brings with it a responsibility with regard to facilitating sustainable finance. Financial markets play a pivotal role in the transition to a greener, more sustainable economy by enabling the mobilization and reallocation of capital necessary for this transformation.

As a provider of financial market infrastructure, SIX is in an optimal position to act as a key player in the development of sustainable financial markets because it is trusted, central, and neutral.

In 2022, the company started to fully integrate sustainability into its overall strategic thinking with the launch of a sustainability strategy. It launched a new sustainability strategy and refocused its activities as a financial market infrastructure provider, as a product supplier and service provider, and as a good corporate citizen.

Among other things, SIX has committed to reducing its carbon footprint to net zero by no later than 2050, in line with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).