First regulated financial market infrastructure for trading and settlement of digital assets in Switzerland

BX Digital is the first Swiss financial market infrastructure to receive approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA for a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) trading facility, laying the foundation for a leading regulated platform for digital assets – a groundbreaking milestone for the Swiss financial market. 

• Boosting innovation in the Swiss financial centre, playing a pioneering role in Europe 

• Providing access to trading new types of digital assets 

• Fast, cost-effective and secure transactions thanks to public blockchain (Ethereum) 

• Settlement of the cash leg with a direct link to the payment system of the Swiss National Bank 

‘The granting of the licence* by FINMA to operate a DLT trading facility is an important step in setting new standards for capital market efficiency and customer access in the digital asset space. Regulated secondary markets have been lacking so far. BX Digital aims to become the leading Swiss financial market infrastructure for trading and decentralised settlement of digital assets.’, explains Dr. Lidia Kurt, Chief Executive Officer of BX Digital. 

The central element of the new DLT trading facility is the settlement in Swiss francs and the transfer of assets on a public blockchain – without the need for intermediaries such as central securities depositories (CSDs). This not only saves time and money but also enables the trading of tokenised assets such as shares, bonds and funds to be traded between market participants such as banks and securities firms. This greatly simplifies processes while ensuring the highest level of security and control over assets. Payments and asset transfers at BX Digital are based on verified delivery versus payment (DvP) agreements. A direct connection to the Swiss National Bank's payment system enables seamless integration with existing banking systems.  

‘We are very excited to launch this new type of financial market infrastructure. By integrating a public blockchain into the existing financial system, BX Digital is making a significant contribution to the efficiency of the capital market and the breakthrough of digital assets,’ says Andreas Ruflin, Chief Digital Officer of BX Digital. 

To ensure the necessary liquidity, BX Digital offers market participants regulatory certainty, sets clear quality standards for trading and ensures the presence of market makers. In close collaboration with its sister company, the Swiss stock exchange BX Swiss, a ground-breaking and highly reliable platform has been developed in a short period of time. The level of interest is tremendous. We have already been able to attract an ecosystem of partners and got banks and issuers excited about our new financial market infrastructure,’ says Lucas Bruggeman, Chief Executive Officer of BX Swiss Exchange and Chairman of the Board of Directors of BX Digital. 

BX Digital is part of Boerse Stuttgart Group, the sixth largest exchange group in Europe. ‘We are convinced of the benefits of blockchain technology for the European capital market. As pioneers, we want to shape the digital European market infrastructure for tokenised assets and thus lay the foundation for the completion of the capital market union. BX Digital is the first step, and our digital European issuance and settlement platform will follow soon,' said Dr. Matthias Voelkel, Chief Executive Officer of Boerse Stuttgart Group. 

*FINMA has granted BX Digital authorisation to operate a DLT trading facility, subject to the fulfilment of certain conditions. The authorisation will become legally effective once these conditions have been met. BX Digital will not commence operations and accept clients until these conditions are met.