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The Swiss and Liechtenstein securities markets are moving from a T+2 to a T+1 settlement cycle on 11 October 2027. The planned migration date is aligned with the EU and the UK to avoid fragmented settlement cycles across Europe. The industry-led Swiss Securities Post-Trade Council (swissSPTC) developed recommendations to achieve a harmonized transition to T+1. Best market practices will be developed and implemented in 2026, and testing is scheduled for 2027 before migration on 11 October 2027. The swissSPTC is aligning its efforts with other task forces in the EU and UK. Since North America shortened its settlement cycle to T+1 in 2024, the European securities markets may rely on lessons learned to some extent.
The goals of the shorter settlement cycle are:
- to provide faster availability of cash and securities to free up capital sooner and reduce collateral and margin requirements,
- to reduce counterparty risk by shortening the time between trade and settlement, and
- to align with the global trend of shorter settlement cycles while avoiding settlement-cycle fragmentation for firms operating cross-border.
Which instruments are in scope?
The T+1 settlement cycle will apply to all transferable securities executed on Swiss regulated trading venues and settled in the Swiss central securities depository (SIX SIS), namely cash equities, fixed income securities, exchange-traded funds, warrants, and structured products. Other products will be impacted indirectly by the shortened settlement cycle, such as non-exchange-traded funds and SPVs investing in securities with a T+1 settlement cycle, due to changes in the NAV calculation process.
Out of scope are primary market transactions, units in funds not traded on an exchange, over-the-counter trades, and securities financing transactions (e.g., repos).
Who is in scope?
Not only financial market infrastructures, but all market participants trading in T+1 securities are affected by the change. Besides direct participants in the Swiss central securities depository SIX SIS, this includes all entities with liquidity management processes for their securities trading, as well as custodians handling buyer protection and market claim processes for corporate actions. Issuers of T+1 securities are in scope as far as planning corporate actions are concerned.
What is the impact?
The T+1 process will require market participants to compress the post-trade process from trade execution to settlement finality from T+2 to T+1. This requires harmonized trading, clearing, and settlement timelines. To this end, the swissSPTC recommends an operational timeline with currency specific cut-off times in the real-time settlement window:
Key considerations for preparation in 2026
Industry experts consider 2026 to be an inflection point, whereby firms will either allocate resources effectively and utilize the year to prepare for the transformation or fail to do so and risk settlement issues on the transition day. Key considerations to set you up for a successful shift to T+1 settlement in 2026:
- Is C-suite sponsorship and a dedicated program for transition readiness established?
- Are the quality and timeliness of your data ready to cater for the transition, e.g., intraday data availability?
- How much are you relying on manual reconciliations, and have you identified automation opportunities?
- Have you locked in the technological investments necessary?
- Are your front-to-back processes fit for purpose for the compressed timeline?
- What is the awareness level of the upcoming transition in your organization, and are your people ready for the transition?
The compression of the settlement cycle will require establishing straight-through processing, earlier matching and affirmation, as well as harmonized cut-offs. The automation of operational and IT processes will become more important in the shortened T+1 settlement cycle, not only, but especially for direct clearing members.
Liquidity management processes will have to be optimized to fall in line with the shortened settlement cycle. For market participants with tight cash buffers in some trading currencies, it will be prudent to raise those to ensure settlement on the intended date.
Together with the transition to the T+1 settlement cycle, a partial settlement process (including partial release) will be introduced as default practice. Market participants will have to review their internal processes to ensure that partial settlements are supported. In addition, an identifier to flag securities financing transactions will be introduced to allow for flexibility in the settlement cycle for such transactions.
Custodians of T+1 securities should automate buyer protection and market claims processing. This is crucial to maintain a robust process to allocate corporate action payments to the buyer or the seller in the compressed settlement cycle.
Funds will have to align with the new T+1 settlement cycle for creation and redemption processes for their units as well as the NAV calculation.
Issuers are advised to plan corporate events in line with the shortened settlement cycle and not to announce any corporate action events in the T+1 settlement cycle transition phase between Monday, 4 October 2027, and Friday, 15 October 2027. This is to support a smooth settlement process for the event.
The Swiss exchanges will amend their rulebooks to reflect the T+1 settlement cycle. Unlike in the EU and the UK, Switzerland does not require changing any legislation for the transition.
Timeline
A look across the border
PwC Switzerland supports market participants across the operational and legal dimensions of the T+1 transition. This includes advice and hands-on involvement in the execution of the recommendations of the swissSPTC, including:
- identifying, reviewing, and amending client agreements/internal systems/terms of business to reflect T+1 recommendations;
- supporting with the automation of key business processes (straight-through processing) to reduce manual intervention and settlement risk;
- identifying and adjusting functionalities to support partial settlement (partial release);
- coordinating with the financial market infrastructure (SIX), key stakeholders, and service providers to align on readiness and testing;
- planning corporate action key dates;
- assessing funding and liquidity arrangements to ensure that you have sufficient cash and securities available one business day earlier than under T+2;
- assessing cash breach risks or mismatch risks for funds.
PwC Switzerland is in constant exchange with its EU and UK network firms to support an aligned transition across Europe. The European PwC network firms can benefit from the experiences gained by PwC US supporting the transition to T+1 in North America.
Contact us
Silvan Thoma
Michael Boppart
Cecilia Lombardi
Senior Manager - Strategy & Transformation, PwC Switzerland
Nanni Oostlander
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