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What does the recent joint venture between your rival Deutsche Boerse, Sygnum, and Swisscom mean for you?

Based in what we know at the moment, I don’t expect a significant impact. I see them as participants in the infrastructure we’re building. The likelihood that a Sygnum would be customer of SDX’s full market infrastructure is very high, I would hope, because that’s where they’re going to find their liquidity.

Deutsche Boerse is further down the crypto path than SIX. Surely they can ensure liquidity?

Are they? We don’t know what their strategic plan is, or whether they are looking at Switzerland as a way to gain more sandbox experience because our regulatory environment is more attractive and probably further ahead than others in the EU. Are they going to step up as a market-maker or take on some other role as part of our new ecosystem? This isn’t clear yet.

Wouldn’t it have made sense to cooperate with aspiring crypto banks like Sygnum?

I think we have to differentiate here between what an infrastructure provider like SIX, and SDX does, and what market participants do in using that infrastructure. So not necessarily, because 15 months ago they had not disclosed what they were focusing on. As far as we can tell, Sygnum is competing primarily with other commercial banks, not with us. Our role is to provide the infrastructure they can all work on fairly and everybody has access to, if they meet the membership criteria. we are not just creating a new asset class, or service, but rather a new market.

What should banks be doing in terms of preparing for SDX?

We’ve got responsibilities around our role as an infrastructure, but we’re putting it out there and saying «play and work with it as soon as this summer, start thinking about what it means for your organization and thinking through some transactions». The creative juices will begin to flow, our members and other market participants like fintechs who connect to these chains will come up with some fantastic products. That’s where the opportunities are and ultimately, also where the fun is.

Jeffrey Voegeli contributed reporting

Thomas Zeeb is head of securities and exchanges and SIX. He joined the Swiss stock exchange operator nearly 11 years ago from Clearstream, a post-trading services provider where he was responsible for sales, relationships, client services, and marketing in Europe. The Toronto native began his financial career at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and also spent nine years at BNY Mellon in London. He was promoted to SIX's top management last year.