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As the banks hand over their data to a foreign company for safe keeping, they do so knowing that in the case of U.S. firms the authorities of a foreign nation get a right to access the secrets of their customers. The U.S. Cloud Act stipulates that the government has right of access to the data even if the storage doesn’t occur on U.S. soil.

SIX, as Switzerland’s financial infrastructure provider, therefore sees itself in the driving seat to build an alternative solution that fulfills all the requirements on safety and regulation. The project is still in its infancy, Lacher said and the money necessary for the project hasn’t yet been dedicated.

But of course, having a Swiss-owned cloud for the financial market does correspond with the wish to make data security a main feature of Swiss banking – akin the famed banking secrecy laws of years past.

Unwelcome Competition

Not all will of course welcome the market entry of a powerful player such as SIX – with Inventx or Swisscom but two examples.

Avaloq, the biggest banking IT provider in Switzerland, also has a Swiss Banking Cloud project ongoing. But Avaloq is building this cloud solution together with IBM, a U.S. company that is subject to the Cloud Act.