September 2008 edition

Table of contents

Editorial by Urs Rüegsegger, CEO SIX Group, talking about the new brand of the financial center infrastructure holding.

Cyber criminals are vulnerable
In early July, cyber criminals launched a new, large-scale attack on Swiss computers in order to get access to sensitive e-banking data. Marc Henauer, head of the cyber crime section at the Federal Office of Police, speaks about successes in fighting the flood of spam mail, puts into perspective the costs for e-banking security and emphasizes the importance for financial institutions to sensitize their customers to the dangers.

Switzerland introduces SEPA Direct Debit
This past June, the Swiss Payments Council gave the go-ahead for the finance market to participate in SEPA Direct Debit. Together with the banks in the 30 EU/EEA Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), Swiss financial institutions will be able to offer their clients cross-border direct debits in euros starting in November 2009.

euroSIC/SECB goes global
Switzerland’s financial center joint venture charts a new course. In response to customer feedback, the euroSIC system manager, SECB Swiss Euro Clearing Bank, expands its euro payments range of services. It secures its position as correspondence bank with improvements in four areas, offering euroSIC participants transaction processing in more than 110 countries.

Eurex migrates to TARGET2 and euroSIC
As of May 2008, TARGET2 is available to all Euro-zone national banks as a uniform European platform, upon which national and cross-border euro payments can be processed. Eurex Clearing now offers its customers access to TARGET2 for Eurex transactions via the euroSIC system.

IBAN steps up a gear
One year ago, the Swiss Payments Council (SPC) decided to introduce a catalogue of measures for guidance to promote IBAN use in national payment traffic by 2010. Since then, the financial institutions have increased their customer communications.

When the five largest participants dominate a payment system
A very few financial institutions submit a significant share of payments to most of the high-value payment systems. The degree of concentration can affect efficiency, competition and risks in payment systems. In a European comparison, the concentration ratio in the Swiss SIC payment system falls somewhere in the middle.

EMVI’08 – The new Maestro card chip
Starting this year, the Swiss banks processing through SIX Card Solutions are equipping their Maestro cards with the new-generation EMVI’08 chips. EMVI’08 brings the highest levels of security by international standards, as well as new functions.