Banks across Switzerland have launched multibanking for private customers through the Open Banking platform bLink from SIX.
Through this, the participating financial institutions intend to significantly contribute to an open and advanced Swiss financial ecosystem. This allows individuals to securely combine their accounts from various banks in a single banking app or, if they consent, integrate them into non-bank apps. This provides them with a more convenient and straightforward way to manage their finances.
Optimising banking across Switzerland
As of the announcement, customers of eight Swiss banks and two third-party providers can connect their accounts to improve and display account information in a single app. Over 30 financial institutions provide the necessary data interface.
Bank customers are set to be able to leverage the same interface to access this data in apps from third parties, such as fintech firms. Among the current possible applications, the banks mention account overviews, spending analyses, and budget planners.
The upcoming years will see more and more banks enabling their customers to access their account information through third-party apps. Also, other financial institutions will roll out their own multibanking offerings and bring more advanced services to non-banks. This is set to gradually develop an open ecosystem that will facilitate benefits to all market participants. When it comes to bank customers, new products and services should be launched on the market, allowing them to simplify everyday finances and scale the transparency of access to financial information.
Furthermore, by rolling out multibanking for private individuals, the participating banks aim to make an important contribution to creating Open Finance in Switzerland. Operated by SIX, the open platform bLink offers the technical base for this, allowing standardised and secure data exchange between financial institutions and third-party providers.
The launching process
The current move follows a broad-based industry initiative which spanned several years. The multibanking move was initially introduced in 2022 by the association Swiss FinTech Innovations (SFTI). The Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) then coordinated a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which several Swiss banks signed in May 2023. Under this deal, the institutions committed to making account data from private accounts accessible through standardised interfaces.
Since the beginning, a foundational focus on the multibanking initiative has been to provide non-banks with secure and controlled access to banking data, always under the explicit consent of bank customers.
