Swiss Fintech Innovations (SFTI)

SFTI was founded in March 2016. Its member list names Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Berner Kantonalbank, corner Banque, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, Lombard Odier, PostFinance, Raiffeisen, SIX, St. Galler Kantonalbank, UBS, Valiant, VZ VermögensZentrum and Zürcher Kantonalbank. Associated members include the core banking vendor Finnova, Mastercard, Viseca, Swisscom, SwissSign, PwC, the University of Zurich and the euro stablecoin issuer AllUnity. The Swiss government's SME portal puts the group at nearly 30 players from the financial sector.

Work happens in working groups, which SFTI calls its Launchpad. A group produces research, a paper, a proof of concept or an industry standard, and any member can join one. Companies that want to become members write to: office@swissfintechinnovations.ch

Switzerland has no PSD2, so its banks agree on interfaces among themselves, and SFTI writes many of the specifications. The Common API covers payments (account information and payment initiation), mortgages from new loans to a change of lender, credit, debit and prepaid cards, and occupational pensions. The specifications are published on GitHub for free use, and banks, insurers such as AXA, Swiss Life and Zurich, card issuers and software vendors take part. Wealth management interfaces come from the OpenWealth Association, which SFTI checks for compliance.

SFTI also started the Swiss multibanking initiative in 2022, and in 2023 numerous banks signed a memorandum of understanding on it, coordinated by the Swiss Bankers Association. The multibanking and open banking in Switzerland pages cover the go-live and the bLink platform of SIX that carries the data exchange.

Digital assets are a second line of work. SFTI has finished projects on the tokenization of digital assets and on institutional investment in crypto asset markets, runs a project on a vision of tokenized finance, and lists a project with the Swiss parliamentary group on cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

Its stablecoin working group asks how a stablecoin pegged to the Swiss franc can be issued, structured and run as a business. Raiffeisen, Zürcher Kantonalbank, St. Galler Kantonalbank, BCV, Lombard Odier, Valiant, Mastercard and AllUnity are among the participants, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences co-leads it, and it coordinates with the Swiss Bankers Association. The planned output is a white paper on business models, yields, risks and liquidity strategies. A franc stablecoin already on the market is covered on Frankencoin, and the euro side on euro stablecoins.

SFTI's AI projects build on its API work. A white paper on AI agent access to SFTI APIs, led by the member Acrea, describes how an agent acting for a customer can call a bank's interfaces in a way that is "secure, standardized, and consent-based", and names the Model Context Protocol as one standard for it. Other projects deal with moving AI from proof of concept into production and with a framework for scaling AI at Swiss financial institutions. Payments made by software agents are the subject of agentic payments.

The Common API is a set of interface specifications that Swiss banks agree on in SFTI working groups, for payments, account information, mortgages, cards and pensions. Each specification is published on GitHub, so a fintech can build one integration that works with several banks.

No. SFTI is an association of banks and financial firms that sets standards and runs research projects. Startups in Zurich find accelerator programs at Tenity and Kickstart Innovation.