Payment Standardization in Switzerland

Payment Standardization in Switzerland

Efficiency and Clarity Thanks to Standardization

SIX Interbank Clearing is involved in several committees focused on questions of standardization concerning the national and international payment traffic. It thus contributes to Swiss banks being able to set up products and services in a timely fashion and to do so on solid and market-driven platforms while facilitating the smooth operation of payments.

The Swiss financial center is introducing beneficial standards, and also taking the opportunity to harmonize payments and to align with the Swiss ISO 20022 payments standard. This is not just SEPA-conforming, in terms of euro payments, but accommodates all domestic and foreign payment transactions.

The harmonization forms the basis for sustainable, competitive Swiss payment traffic in the future. The harmonization program also enables simpler payment processes in the future with improved processing quality. At the same time, complexity will be reduced when it comes to the development and maintenance of payment systems. Innovative and customer-friendly functionalities will be at the users' disposal.

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23.11.2023

New version of the Swiss Implementation Guidelines QR-bill

The new version 2.3 of the "Swiss Implementation Guidelines for the QR-bill" will come into force on 21 November 2025.

As early as 1 January 2024, the new chapter 3.8 "Layout rules for the online use of the QR-bill" and changes to chapter 4.3.3 regarding the printing of information from the "Billing information" field will come into force. These changes do not require any technical adjustments.

All changes to version 2.2 of the Implementation Guidelines are listed in detail in the Documentation of Changes.

To the Implementation Guidelines QR-bill Version 2.3

17.11.2023

Consultation procedures on Swiss Payment Standards 2024 – part II (remaining changes)

Part II of the consultation procedure presents the remaining changes to SPS 2024. Time window for comments: 20 November to 20 December 2023

The results of the consultation procedure for part I (Instant payment) will be published in December 2023 and for part II in January 2024.

The documents, including the forms, can be found here: Consultations Swiss Payment Standards

07.09.2023

Consultation procedures on Swiss Payment Standards 2024 – part I (instant payments)

This year's public consultation procedure is divided into two parts: 

  • Part I presents the changes associated with the upcoming introduction of instant payments. It is due to be published in early September. Time window for comments: 5 September to 6 October 2023
  • Part II of the consultation procedure presents the remaining changes to SPS 2024. It is due to be published at the end of November.

The documents, including the forms, can be found here: Consultations Swiss Payment Standards

05.07.2023

EBICS-Forum Schweiz 2023

Monday, 18 September 2023

Forum will be held in German

Register now

22.05.2023

Errata in SIC Platform Release 4.10 of 17 November 2023

We have made several adjustments and clarifications to the release notes (cf. circular SIC A13/2023 in the extranet). In addition, the following three Implementation Guidelines have been updated:

  • Correction to pacs.009 XML schema
  • Correction to inconsistency in camt.056 and camt.029 XML schemas
  • Correction to camt.025 XML schema

To the adapted Implementation Guidelines – SIC-Plattform-Release 4.10

01.03.2023

Updated Specifications

The new versions of the Swiss Payment Standards documents ("SPS 2023”) in the customer-bank message section:

  • Implementation Guidelines for Credit Transfers (Version 2.0.2)
  • Implementation Guidelines for Cash Management (Version 2.0.​2)

The Implementation Guidelines for the status report will not be changed and the version 2.0.1 remains valid. Publication of the adjusted Swiss Business Rules will follow in March 2023.
 

Specifications for SIC Platform Release 4.10 from 17 November 2023:

  • Implementation Guidelines – SIC Platform Release 4.10
10.01.2023

Consultation Report for the Swiss Payment Standards

The consultation report on SPS 2023 for Credit Transfers, Cash Management and Status Report has been completed.

The public consultation pertaining to the planned changes for the three Implementation Guidelines ran from 5 to 20 December 2022.

The new versions of the SPS documents will be published in February 2023. 

To the Consultation Report
23.12.2022

Extension of the Parallel Use of ISO 20022 Standard Versions 2009 and 2019

The Board of Directors of SIX Interbank Clearing (SIC) Ltd has decided to extend the two-year parallel phase for use of both message versions (V2009 and V2019), as outlined in the Swiss Payment Standards (SPS), by one year until November 2025.

Find out more

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