BX Digital received regulatory approval from the Swiss markets regulator to operate a digital asset trading and settlement platform, becoming the first of its kind in the country, it said.
The license from the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) allows the Zurich-based company to function as a distributed ledger technology (DLT) trading facility, streamlining transactions for tokenized financial instruments.
BX Digital will use the Ethereum blockchain to facilitate direct asset transfers without intermediaries such as central securities depositories, the company said in a press release.
This structure allows faster, lower-cost transactions while supporting trading of tokenized shares, bonds and funds among market participants including banks and securities firms.
“Regulated secondary markets have been lacking so far,“ CEO Lidia Kurt said in the statement. The license “is an important step in setting new standards for capital market efficiency and customer access in the digital asset space.”
A key feature of the system is its connection to the Swiss National Bank’s payment network, ensuring transactions settle in Swiss francs with delivery versus payment agreements. To ensure liquidity, BX Digital is working with market makers and has received strong interest from banks and issuers, according to Lucas Bruggeman, the CEO of sister company BX Swiss, .
BX Digital operates under Boerse Stuttgart Group, Europe’s sixth-largest exchange group, which sees this initiative as part of a broader push to modernize capital markets using blockchain technology. The platform has to fulfill specific regulatory conditions before it will start accepting clients.
Boerse Stuttgart Group’s CEO, Matthias Völkel, said BX Digital is only a first step and a “digital European issuance and settlement platform will follow soon.” The group earlier this year revealed crypto accounts for 25% of its revenue.
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