On Tuesday, the operator of the Swiss financial-market infrastructure officially launched multibanking for retail clients Switzerland. According to SIX, the participating institutions (eight Swiss banks and two third-party providers) are making «an important contribution to an open and innovation-driven Swiss financial ecosystem».

SIX did not name participants, but Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Zürcher Kantonalbank and Hypo Lenzburg promptly identified themselves as involved parties in their own statements.

Wide Range of Applications

Starting this week, private customers can securely consolidate accounts from different banks - subject to explicit consent - within a bank's mobile app or integrate them into third-party apps, enabling convenient and transparent financial management.

More than 30 banks already provide the required data interface. Clients can also share this information selectively with third-party apps (such as fintechs) through the same interface. Current use cases include consolidated account overviews, spending analyses and budgeting tools.

A Step Toward Open Finance

According to SIX, the launch of multibanking for retail clients represents an important step in establishing open finance in Switzerland. The technical backbone is provided by SIX's bLink open-banking platform, which enables standardized and secure data exchange between financial institutions and third-party providers.

SIX expects that, over the next few years, more banks will allow customers to access their account data through external apps. «At the same time, additional financial institutions will launch their own multibanking solutions, and non-banks will offer innovative services. This will gradually create an open ecosystem that benefits all market participants.»

Years of Preparatory Work

The rollout of multibanking for retail customers is the result of a broad industry initiative launched in 2022 by Swiss Fintech Innovations (SFTI). A corresponding memorandum of understanding - coordinated by the Swiss Bankers Association- was signed in may 2023 by numerous Swiss banks, committing them to make retail account data accessible via standardized interfaces.

Christoph Müller, Head Banking Services & Mitglied Executive Board, SIX, commented: «Open banking continues to gain momentum in Switzerland. With today's launch of multibanking, a concrete use case for private clients goes live. We are pleased that numerous banks are implementing this milestone via our bLink open-banking platform. The task now is to carry its expansion forward, together.»