Fintech & blockchain

Where world-class technology meets Swiss reliability

The Greater Zurich Area has evolved into a global fintech and blockchain hub, thanks to factors like access to talent, leading research institutes, innovation-friendly regulators, investors and industry partners. Switzerland, and particularly Crypto Valley in the Greater Zurich Area, has been at the forefront of digitization and disruptive technologies, and start-ups in the area have access to a variety of incubators and accelerators that support them in establishing a company and developing ideas and products.

Fintech

Building on a long tradition as a leader financial hub with top technical universities, the Greater Zurich Area offers ideal conditions for driving growth and innovation in fintech. Today, Greater Zurich is one of the leading fintech hubs in the world, on par with Singapore and London.

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Blockchain technology

The Greater Zurich Area, specifically its world-famous Crypto Valley, has developed into a world center for the blockchain industry. Greater Zurich provides a business-friendly, pragmatic regulatory environment and a deep-rooted sense of privacy protection, along with a high concentration of peer companies, service providers and world-renowned research institutions, all working together in order to push the boundaries of the blockchain application scope.

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Legal framework for Fintech and blockchain companies

Switzerland is known as one of the most stable countries in the world and thus offers the ideal environment for fintech and blockchain companies, which heavily rely on legal certainty like protection of property, data protection laws, confidentiality, and a politically stable environment.

The Swiss legal and political system is a major competitive advantage for fintech companies. In fact, fintech companies benefit from low corporate and individual tax rates, a high number of double tax treaties and approachable, pragmatic authorities.

Recent legal adaptions have reduced market entry barriers for fintech companies even more and strengthen the competitiveness of the Swiss financial center:

A business-model-neutral fintech license was introduced in 2019, which allows public deposits of up to 100 million Swiss Francs. This makes access to the Swiss market for blockchain and crypto companies much easier. Such fintech banking licenses were granted to SEBA and Sygnum, thus making them the first crypto banks in the world.
SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) was authorized as the world’s first regulated, fully integrated digital trading, settlement, and custody infrastructure exchange for digital assets by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority – FINMA. With this license, SDX enjoys the same high standards of oversight and regulation as the traditional financial market infrastructure since 2021.
In 2021, the federal council implemented a new DLT framework which makes Switzerland one of the first countries to offer advanced regulatory solutions and specific amendments for fintech.

These extensions of legal possibilities have attracted many foreign companies to set up their headquarters in Switzerland and especially in the Greater Zurich Area and allow emerging technologies to thrive even more.

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