SIX Group

Founding

In 2008, SWX Group, Telekurs Group and SIS Group joined forces to form Swiss Financial Market Services, which began to operate under the brand SIX Group in 2008. The company provides services in the areas of securities trading (former SWX Group), securities services (former SIS Group) and financial information and payment transactions (former Telekurs Group).

Acquisitions

In 2013, SIX took over the Austrian PayLife Bank GmbH, followed by Norwegian Oslo Clearing ASA in early 2014.

SIX increased its stake in Luxembourg's financial infrastructure service provider CETREL in 2014, which is now fully owned by SIX.

Cetrel and PayLife merged with SIX Payment Services and adopted the trade name of the latter.

Anti trust proceedings

In 2005, SIX Multipay AG launched a Dynamic currency conversion (DCC) function that was only available on SIX Card Solutions AG card terminals. The Federal Competition Commission COMCO intervened and accused SIX subsidiary of abusing its dominant market position. In December 2006, SIX Multipay AG made the DCC function available to other terminal providers and disclosed the interface data. Four years later, the COMCO imposed a fine of CHF 7 million on SIX. SIX paid the fine, thereby ending the anti-trust proceedings.

Securities trading and post-trade services

SIX operates Switzerland's stock market. It admits securities to be traded over the exchange, operates the trading platform, monitors trading activities and distributes market data. The trading platform operated by SIX allows the trading of equities, bonds, derivatives, investment funds and certificates, among other things. SIX provides and calculates indices such as the Swiss Market Index (SMI). After a trade SIX provides clearing services by acting as a Central counterparty (CCP). Once cleared, the firm settles transactions by ensuring that the buyer receives the shares and the seller receives payment. This process includes the management of real-time payments between banks. </ref> SIX Interbank Clearing operates the SIC and euroSIC payment systems in Switzerland and across its borders. It thereby enables banks worldwide to handle their large-value and retail payments in francs and euro. ^[3]

SIX also provides custody services for the safekeeping of shares and high-value documents. In this regard, SIX acts as Switzerland's central securities depository and has custody of most of the financial instruments issued under Swiss law.

Finally, on behalf the Cantons of Switzerland, SIX manages the electronic information portal for land registry data. The latter is run under the name of Terravis and enables mortgage, land and trade registry transactions.^[4]

Financial information

SIX collects financial data from international trading venues and companies in real time, normalises it and sells it to subscribers (Banks, Fund Administrators, Trading Desks etc.). This includes basic information about companies which issue Financial instruments (reference data) and information about measures affecting those instruments (corporate actions) as well as providing prices for the instruments from most trying venues around the world.he services cover over 15 million financial instruments.

Cashless payment transactions

SIX processes credit, debit and prepaid card payments in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and many other European countries. In addition, SIX powers the Swiss Cash machine network and a network for processing payment cards at terminals or online. Since 2015, SIX has provided a mobile payment solution "Paymit" allowing user to make payments from their smartphone. Since 2017, the solution is run and further developed by a consortium of Swiss banks together with SIX under the name TWINT. In Switzerland SIX also processes direct debit payments and provides e-billing services.