Retrospective of the 11th member event of the OpenBankingProject.ch

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On November 13, the members of the OpenBankingProject.ch met for the eleventh time to discuss current developments in the field of open banking in Switzerland and to take a look into the future together. The event offered exciting insights into the latest advances and challenges in the sector. Here are the most important highlights and insights from the day.

Opening

The event began with a warm welcome from Thomas Zerndt and Stefan Knaus, who introduced the current partners and members of the OpenBankingProject.ch. They emphasized the vision of the project, which focuses on the customer and their journey. Banks must inevitably open up in order to meet customer expectations. Technology and cross-company value creation are the keys to this. The drivers for open banking were highlighted, such as increasing regulations, rising IT costs and a rather hesitant market development.

Member presentation Julien Rösch, PPI Switzerland – Instant payments and open banking

Julien Rösch shed light on the developments of instant payments, which enable users to execute payments 24/7 in just 10 seconds. While instant payments have been established in Germany since 2017, the major Swiss banks only entered the market this year, with a market share of less than 1%. Rösch also presented the functionality of instant payments using the Instant Payments Bridge from SIX and the possibilities for simple implementation of instant payments based on the further development of existing systems. It is important to promote innovation now, as instant payments will soon become the “new normal”.

Member presentation Adrian Meyer Broyn, KYC Spyder – Digital onboarding of customers

The presentation by Adrian Meyer Broyn focused on digital customer onboarding, which is implemented by KYC Spyder in five steps: Registration, chatbot, identification, contract and signing. For this purpose, publicly accessible data is used via API and, in some cases, artificial intelligence, for example for customer identification.

Partner presentation Michael Doujak, Ergon – Impact of SSI on business architectures

Michael Doujak explained classic business architectures such as hub-spoke and mesh approaches and how these should be viewed in the context of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). Instead of rigid B2B processes, the SSI approach centers on customers. Using wallets, they can control themselves which data they want to share. The advantages for banks are manifold: from authentication and payments to credit checks. In the context of SSI, the interaction of multiple parties across ecosystem boundaries is facilitated by the provision of a national trust infrastructure. However, uptake is still low due to high costs and a lack of use cases. Doujak emphasized that regulatory support is necessary to establish an infrastructure for SSI.

Guest presentation Marcel Eicher, Swisscard

Marcel Eicher from Swisscard discussed use cases in the area of open data, wallets and E-ID with Thomas Zerndt. They addressed credit card onboarding and embedded finance, in which the user perceives the services without realizing which party operates in the background.

Guest presentation Fabio Marchesin, BlueBudget

Fabio Marchesin, Swiss financial blogger and founder of BlueBudget, presented his vision for the development of the “hottest budget app in Switzerland”, in which every bank can be connected and actively helps users to save money – for example through AI-supported budget categories and Swiss tax compliance. He emphasized that open banking creates added value for all participants within the ecosystem by promoting competition, enabling new collaborations and offering banks opportunities for differentiation without having to build new infrastructures.

Panel discussion

In the concluding panel discussion with Adrian Berger (Ergon) and Daniel Säuberli (Didas), moderated by Thomas Zerndt (Business Engineering Institute St.Gallen), the opportunities and challenges of open banking were discussed. They also discussed replacing the term “open banking” with “connected banking”, as this emphasizes the targeted and value-adding opening of specific banking services rather than implying a general opening. However, it was emphasized that the transformation towards the gradual opening of banks cannot be stopped. Switzerland has an opportunity to position itself beyond national borders, as the full potential of open banking cannot yet be anticipated.

Outlook and objectives for 2025

Finally, the objectives of the OpenBankingProject.ch for the upcoming year were outlined. These include the provision of the Open API customer relationships, the continuation of the community workshops and the further development of use cases for digital customer proximity. There will also be a focus on collaboration with national and international partners in the context of public-private partnerships and the implementation of Swiss E-ID POCs.

Save the Dates:

  • 12. Mitgliederanlass OpenBankingProject.ch – 23.04.2025
  • Open Banking Summit bei Google – 21.08.2025
Stefan Knaus
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