History BX Swiss
Historically, banking in Bern can look back on a history of almost 300 years. Already at the beginning of the 18th century, the city of Bern had a number of reputable private banks that were primarily active in the international money business.
The Berner Börsenverein emerged from the Berner Bankenvereinigung, which was founded on 28 January 1880 by nine banking institutions and fourteen private companies operating at the time in Bern with the aim of facilitating and increasing commercial transactions. The need to keep track of the practices that had established themselves over the years and the desire for a tighter organisation led to the founding of the Berne Stock Exchange Association on 10 November 1884.
The floor trading on the Börsenring with its "à-la-criée system" was replaced in 1991 by the Telephone Exchange Bern (TBB). Since 2002, trading, clearing and settlement among licensees has been handled via a modern, fully electronic trading system. After the Stock Exchange Act came into force in 1997, the stock exchange, which was renamed BX Berne eXchange in 2002, was approved by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) as a stock exchange-like institution in 1999.
In November 2017, with the introduction of the Financial Market Infrastructure Act in Switzerland, FINMA granted BX Swiss re-approval in the highest requirement category of the stock exchanges. This confirmed BX's status as a fully-fledged Swiss stock exchange.
One month later, Börse Stuttgart GmbH acquired a majority stake in BX and has been the sole owner since the beginning of 2018. In April, BX migrated to the Elasticia trading system used and developed at NGM, a Scandinavian exchange subsidiary of Börse Stuttgart. The product offering has been continuously expanded since then.
BX Swiss also holds FINMA licenses to operate a Prospectus Office and an Advisor Register under the Financial Services Act (FinSA).