A visit with Thomas Ankenbrand, ­Professor of FinTech at Lucerne ­University of Applied Sciences and Arts

“Hello, I’m Thomas!” A cheerful Professor Ankenbrand welcomes us on a gloomy October day to talk about payment solutions. Dressed in sneakers, jeans, and a sweater, Thomas Ankenbrand, professor of FinTech, shows us around the campus, which opened in 2019. It’s called Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, but it’s actually a joint institution of the six cantons of central Switzerland. The Institute for Financial Services Zug IFZ and the Department of Computer Science are located here in Rotkreuz, Zug canton.

On this Tuesday, the university is well attended. We notice that the gender ratio among the students is relatively even. “Should this really still be an issue today?” asks Ankenbrand. The fact that the professor likes to be ahead of his time will become apparent later when it comes to payment transactions.

In the study The Future of Invoicing, Ankenbrand’s team examined the pros and cons of four common invoicing methods in Switzerland from the perspective of both the invoice issuer and the invoice recipient. eBill ranked first or second in all 11 criteria examined in the utility analysis, including security, cost, convenience, efficiency, and sustainability.

“Thomas, what makes this technology so good?”

The answer is surprising, since eBill is all about ease of use. “The interesting thing about this new platform is that both invoicing parties work in the same system,” Ankenbrand explains. “This means that nothing has to be transferred, scanned, or typed – there are no media breaks. This is important because media breaks are sources of error and gateways to fraud. This closed system makes it difficult for anyone to interfere with communication between sender and recipient. The whole thing is encrypted throughout.” The results are impressive: To date, there has not been a single known case of fraud on the eBill platform.

Ankenbrand himself has been using the eBill platform since its inception. Still, he thinks it’s good that there are other payment options in Switzerland. “A certain amount of redundancy and freedom of choice strengthens the system. Depending on the situation, there are good reasons to use one technology or another. Maybe you don’t want to pay for a gift for your partner from your joint account.” The economist has a similar approach to cash: Though he rarely needs it, he always carries a certain amount on his person. “You never know,” he says.

We talk about the future of eBill. “The population of Switzerland is nine million,” says Ankenbrand. “For a scalable technology that wants to expand its user base, this market is rather small.” One option would be to expand into the European market, where there is nothing comparable to date. However, this would require harmonization with EU regulation.

Ankenbrand also believes it is realistic for eBill to open up and spearhead an “open billing” system. What he means by that: “In the future, my self-driving car will autonomously drive to the charging station. It will then send me an automated invoice directly to my eBill inbox.” Or: “I’m on vacation and want to pay for the hotel. An app on my phone will show me which is the cheapest method – ­credit card in euros, credit card in francs, PayPal – or perhaps an invoice that lands in my mailbox.” In order for such services to be able to communicate with the eBill platform, standardized open billing interfaces are required.

The area where the university campus is located is called Suurstoffi. The name suggests altitude training and oxygen supply (Suurstoff means oxygen in Swiss German), and stems from the location’s past: The company Sauerstoff- & Wasserstoff-Werk Luzern AG used to have a production plant here. A few years ago, a Zug-based real estate company took over the industrial site and has since made it sustainable: Trees grow on the balconies of the new buildings and photovoltaic systems are installed on the roofs. The community of Risch, to which Rotkreuz belongs, has been growing rapidly for decades. In 1982, 4,200 people lived here; today there are more than 11,000. It’s no wonder that Risch sits at the top of the Handelszeitung’s town rankings. On this gray morning, we count far more construction cranes than people.

It's less than 50 meters on foot from the meeting room to the railway station. But we miss the train. Bad luck or good fortune? We discover an excellent bakery right next to the station. Only the cash register is out of order. We think of Thomas Ankenbrand – and happily pull a 50-franc note out of our wallets.