ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss financial infrastructure group SIX aims to take on more securities business on behalf of Swiss banks as they seek to cut costs by pooling resources, it said on Friday.
"The pressure on management and their desire.. .to outsource certain things has increased," interim SIX Chairman Romeo Lacher told a news conference. "As a neutral supplier owned by the banks we believe we should play an important role."
SIX operates Switzerland's financial market infrastructure and offers securities trading, clearing and settlement, as well as financial information and payment transactions. It is owned by its users, some 130 banks.
It already provides some services to banks such as providing documentation for investment products and is negotiating with them about handling securities transactions that do not settle properly. SIX thinks banks are ready to outsource a variety of other small-scale services to them.
Doing the same for all back-office functions would however be demanding and time consuming, Lacher said. "It would take 10 to 15 years before a (joint) transaction bank was up and running," he said.
With rivals including Swisscom (S:SCMN), Temenos (S:TEMN) or Avaloq also keen to snap up business, "various outsourcing partners will co-exist," he said.