UBS, PostFinance and five other Swiss financial institutions are testing a regulated franc-pegged stablecoin
Seven of Switzerland’s most prominent financial institutions have joined forces to test a regulated Swiss franc (CHF)-pegged stablecoin, filling a gap which has grown harder to ignore as blockchain-based payment infrastructure matures globally.
UBS, PostFinance, Sygnum, Raiffeisen, Zürcher Kantonalbank, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise and Swiss Stablecoin AG launched the initiative on 8 April, establishing a live sandbox environment in which potential use cases for a CHF-pegged digital asset will be trialled throughout 2026.
The consortium has also opened the sandbox to other banks, companies and institutions that wish to contribute. No regulated Swiss franc stablecoin with broad application currently exists in Switzerland, making this the most institutionally significant attempt yet to establish one.
Switzerland’s regulatory moment
The launch arrives as Switzerland’s legislative framework for digital assets undergoes a significant overhaul – one still in progress. In October 2025, the Swiss Federal Council launched a public consultation on proposed amendments to the Financial Institutions Act, introducing two new licence categories: ‘Payment Institutions’, with exclusive authority to issue value-stable crypto-based means of payment, and ‘Crypto Institutions’, authorised to provide custody and trading services for crypto-based assets.
The consultation closed in February 2026, with a dispatch to Parliament not expected until the second half of 2026 at the earliest.
Deloitte analysis found under the proposed regime, banks would not be permitted to issue regulated stablecoins directly; they would instead be required to establish a separate legal entity to obtain a Payment Institution licence.
The consortium’s decision to route issuance through Swiss Stablecoin AG, a dedicated infrastructure provider, suggests the institutions are already structuring themselves in anticipation of said framework.
Since Switzerland is neither a member of the European Union (EU) nor the European Economic Area (EEA), the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA) does not apply directly to Swiss companies – though Swiss firms providing services to EU-based customers within MiCA’s scope will still be required to comply.
The country’s jurisdictional independence has historically been a competitive advantage, allowing Switzerland to develop bespoke digital asset frameworks under the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority’s (FINMA) technology-neutral supervision without being constrained by the EU’s more prescriptive ruleset.
In March 2025, FINMA issued its first licence to a distributed ledger technology (DLT) trading facility, BX Digital, further evidence that the regulatory infrastructure proposed to support the Swiss stablecoin sandbox is no longer nascent.
Europe’s stablecoin race
In late 2025, nine major European banks – including ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank and Raiffeisen Bank International – announced the formation of a consortium to launch a euro-denominated stablecoin, positioning it as a European alternative to the US-dominated market.
Both the EU and Swiss stablecoin are responses to tackle the dominance of US-issued tokens, which command approximately 99% of the market share (as of late 2025), according to Oxford Law. Tether‘s USDT alone holds around $140bn in market capitalisation.
For the leading Swiss institutions behind this stablecoin sandbox, the aim for now is to “support the development of a Swiss ecosystem for digital money, build new capabilities and experience in handling digital payment methods, and gain practical insights.”
