Swiss National Bank and SIX Launches New Generation of the Swiss Payment System SIC5

SIX, a leading financial firm that operates the infrastructure for the Swiss financial center, and the Swiss National Bank, today announced that they have launched a new generation of the Swiss payment system, known as SIC5, enabling electronic customer payments to be made instantly.

In November 2023, the Swiss financial center put the Instant Payment Service (IP service) of the central Swiss Payment System SIC into operation. This created the technical prerequisites for the immediate and final transfer of value for cashless customer payments.

According to SIX, around 70 financial institutions will connect to the IP service by the official launch on 20 August 2024. Together, they will cover the majority of customer payment transactions in Switzerland.

As stated in the announcement, since 15 December 2023, detailed and binding information is publicly available to support financial institutions and their software partners in implementing solutions at the customer-bank interface (e.g., e-banking channel). The new Implementation Guidelines for financial institutions will be published in February 2024.