SIX continues to invest in Open Banking in Switzerland and will enter into a strategic partnership with LUXHUB, one of the leading European Open Banking service providers. The partnership will enable SIX to implement proven technology into its Swiss Open Banking Hub “bLink”. The partners will also collaborate on bringing new Open Banking use cases to Switzerland that will enable banks to develop better experiences and new services for their clients.
In May 2020 SIX launched its Open Banking Hub bLink, therewith providing the basis for Open Banking in Switzerland. As the next logical and decisive strategic move, SIX adopts a collaborative approach with LUXHUB in order to scale up its API service offerings and introduces innovative and viable use cases from Europe to its clients in Switzerland. With this strategic investment, the leading financial infrastructure provider underlines a long-term commitment to bLink and the sustainable establishment of Open Banking in the Swiss financial center.
bLink service portfolio enables innovative offerings, reduces complexity and overall effort for all participants
With the bLink solution, SIX enables banks and third parties, e.g. fintechs, to build or integrate new functionalities into their offerings, eventually promoting innovation for end customers. The main elements of bLink are standardized APIs that facitilitate the secure exchange of data, a due diligence on all participants to ensure high security standards and a common legal framework which makes additional contracts between the bLink participants redundant.
“Developer Portal” and “Consent as a Service” make it easier to onboard to bLink
In order to further improve user experience for bLink customers SIX will introduce a bLink Portal based on the proven LUXHUB technology in the first half of 2021. This will allow potential users to view the available use cases and APIs and also test them with test data in a sandbox. This also allows future use cases to be showcased even before they have been implemented. Additionally, the new “Consent as a Service” offering will enable SIX to provide security functionalities as a service to third parties. This significantly reduces efforts to onboard to bLink and allows SIX to scale the platform faster.
New value added use cases in Switzerland
EU banks have started to offer services through API interfaces which go beyond the mandated scope of the mandatory PSD2 regulation which was launched a year ago in the European Union. In collaboration with fintechs and service providers, they are developing and testing new value added services at increasing pace.
SIX aims to make these innovations available for Swiss clients as well. Through the new partnership, SIX and LUXHUB will align their technology, identify and test new use cases, share the learnings and roll out successful offerings efficiently in their respective markets. One example of this is the Inteligent Character Recognition Service (ICR) which LUXHUB is currently piloting with a technology provider.
Marco Menotti, Head Banking Services SIX: “The partnership with LUXHUB underlines our commitment to bLink and Open Banking in Switzerland. We believe that collaboration is key in this ‘new world’. Together with LUXHUB we will be able to accelerate our offerings, but more importantly test and learn from each other with the goal of bringing new innovative solutions to our clients, thus further driving the transformation of the Swiss capital market.”
Jacques Putz, CEO LUXHUB: ”LUXHUB was founded upon the firm belief that Open Banking will transform financial services Europe-wide. Having played a crucial role in the initial compliance process for multiple institutions, we are now primely positioned to act as a key catalyst for the next, innovation-driven, phase of the sector’s evolution. Through our collaborative partnership with SIX, we are delighted to be able to help facilitate the acceleration and optimisation of Open Banking in Switzerland and beyond.”