The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has licensed BX Digital AG as the first distributed ledger technology (DLT) trading facility, enabling the multilateral trading of DLT securities under the Financial Market Infrastructure Act on the basis of Switzerland’s DLT Act. BX Digital, a sister company of BX Swiss AG and part of the Boerse Stuttgart Group, is targeting supervised participants, typically banks, and does not provide custody of DLT securities. BX Digital applied to operate as a small DLT trading facility, which requires it to remain below thresholds set in the Financial Market Infrastructure Ordinance and provides a degree of regulatory relief. As part of the licensing process, FINMA required a business continuity strategy covering settlement infrastructure that relies on a public blockchain and expects technical checks of the technology used, including reviewing the source code used by smart contracts. The facility uses Ethereum for settlement and connects to the Swiss Interbank Clearing system for payment, with delivery-versus-payment executed via a smart contract that synchronises payment from the buyer’s SIC account with the on-chain transfer of DLT securities.
Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) 2025-03-18
Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority licenses BX Digital as Switzerland’s first DLT trading facility
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) licensed BX Digital AG as the first DLT trading facility under Switzerland’s DLT Act, enabling multilateral trading of DLT securities. BX Digital, part of the Boerse Stuttgart Group, targets supervised participants like banks and operates below thresholds for regulatory relief. FINMA required a business continuity strategy and technical checks, including smart contract source code review, with Ethereum used for settlement and integration with the Swiss Interbank Clearing system.