Six major Swiss banks - UBS, PostFinance, Sygnum, Raiffeisen, Zürcher Kantonalbank, and BCV - have joined forces to launch a sandbox initiative aimed at testing the issuance and distribution of a CHF-denominated stablecoin. Working alongside Swiss Stablecoin, the group is inviting additional banks and financial institutions to participate, building on prior collaboration between some members on tokenized deposit experiments.

The initiative comes against the backdrop of limited traction for CHF stablecoins to date, despite Switzerland’s advanced financial infrastructure. A key constraint has been the country’s strict anti-money laundering framework, which currently requires identification of all stablecoin holders. However, this position may evolve. Proposed legislative changes by the Swiss Federal Council - currently under review - introduce greater flexibility, allowing issuers to choose between strict user whitelisting or a more permissive blacklist-based approach, potentially lowering barriers to broader adoption.

At this stage, the sandbox focuses on high-level objectives such as developing a functional ecosystem for Swiss digital money and gaining operational experience. Technical direction remains open, though participants like Sygnum bring relevant expertise from earlier tokenization projects, including shared token models that separate underlying liabilities while maintaining a unified instrument. The initiative also emerges amid growing competition, including efforts by AllUnity to develop a MiCA-compliant CHF stablecoin, underscoring increasing momentum around digital Swiss franc solutions.