By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 12th, 2024
SIX Swiss Exchange will launch its new blockchain-powered SDX Digital Trading Platform this summer. The technology will help to speed up trading.
Today it’s quite a common practice for traditional financial institutions, including stock exchanges, to turn to the emerging technologies and digital assets in order to expand their services and provide their customers with much wider opportunities and a higher level of security than they used to have before. And this positive tendency is gaining momentum.
The principal stock exchange of Switzerland called SIX Swiss Exchange is not an exception. For example, CoinSpeaker has already reported about its plans to list the world’s first multi-crypto-based ETP and to tokenize traditional securities. Now some new information has been revealed.
Blockchain Integration
As in has become known, SIX Swiss Exchange is going to test blockchain integration for its new SIX Digital Exchange trading platform (SDX) that will be launched in the second half of this year. The main aim of powering the platform with blockchain technology is to ensure the highest speed of trading transactions.
Initially, the upcoming SDX will run alongside the existing SIX platform. Currently, if you want to complete a trade, you need to pass through three steps, as ,a result it may take you up to several days to conduct an operation.
Thanks to the implementation of a distributed ledger, two stages of the process can be omitted which will significantly reduce the time needed. As a result, a trade will be completed within a few seconds.
Company’s Vision
Integration of the emerging technology is quite a logical move in the context of the general goal to increase the level of the services provided and enhance traders experience.
Jos Dijsselhof, CEO of the platform, explained that with the help of the chosen technology they could ensure the time efficiency and enhanced security at all the steps of stock trading and settlement. He added:
“The fact is, it takes two days for the buyer of a stock to become the owner. The trade itself only takes a fraction of a second, but after that payments have to be settled and titles transferred. If we put it all on our digital exchange, then the whole process takes only a few seconds. This makes the market more efficient, but at the same time also takes risks out of the system. “
According to Romeo Lacher SIX exchange chairman, the launch date for the new platform is scheduled for late summer. Nevertheless, the exact date depends on some legal and regulatory issues and the final decision of the Financial Market Supervisory Authority that is the Swiss market regulator.
Lacher believes that their new platform will be able to replace their existing marketplace within 10 years. Moreover, he has revealed that they are planning to introduce their own Security Token offering to provide investors with a possibility to get an equity stake in exchange for capital.
It is believed that initially SDX will offer trading in selected stocks and then the list of offerings will be expanded to other stocks, bonds and probably exchange-traded funds. It’s even possible that in the future SDX will allow trading in assets that are not securities like paintings, for example.
