Financial markets all over the world are getting more and more interlinked - and financial institutions abroad are looking for easy, direct access to the national Swiss clearing systems. This is especially important for foreign members of the Swiss Value Chain (the fully integrated Swiss Stock Trading- and Settlement-System based on the electronic interface of SWX Swiss Exchange, SIS SEGAINTERSETTLE and Swiss Interbank Clearing). Until now, an online link was only possible through the specific SIC/euroSIC infrastructure or with proprietary access software and corresponding effort.

remoteGATE simplifies this process tremendously.
Via SWIFT a remote member can execute customer payments (MT100/103 - MT103+ starting November 2000) as well as bank to bank orders (MT202). remoteSIC provides participants with excellent real time liquidity overview via the Internet, e.g. current settlement status of incoming and outgoing transactions, general overview by value date, inquiries about individual payments.

remoteGATE uses an electronic certificate from Swisskey and an internet browser (Netscape/Microsoft) for account management.

For authentication the Swisskey certificate is saved on a Smartcard, which is connected to the PC via a card reader. Information sent via the Internet is encrypted with an encryption key with a minimum length of 128 bit.

Swiss Interbank Clearing is a company wholly owned by Telekurs Holding AG and operates payment systems in Switzerland and – with euroSIC – cross-border, as a joint venture of the Swiss financial institutions.

SIC and euroSIC

SIC, the clearing system for Swiss Franc payments, allows the participating financial institutions to optimize cash management and facilitates the rapid settlement of payments in Switzerland. euroSIC provides a link to the other European payment systems and thus also provides an efficient cross-border gateway for payments to and from other European clearing systems.

Over one billion payments since 1987

To date, over a billion payments have been cleared through SIC. On peak days, transactions totalling up to 300 billion Swiss Francs are processed. The number of euroSIC payments has risen steadily since January 1999. Altogether in 1999, euroSIC processed 503,000 transactions, about a third of which were cross-border payments.

Information:
Bernhard Wenger
Press Spokesman and Head of Public Relations

Telephone: +41 (0)44 279 22 20
Facsimile: +41 (0)44 279 23 36