In June 2020, Anapaya announced a project to develop a new secure communication network with the Swiss financial industry. “This network has now completed its technical evaluation and is currently being operationalised with a target go-live in the second half of 2021 - provided approval by key parties,” explains Martin Bosshardt, CEO of Anapaya.
In collaboration with the Swiss National Bank, SIX, the Swiss telecom companies Sunrise, Swisscom and SWITCH as partners and some multinational banks, the project has reached several critical milestones in setting up a new secure communication network for the Swiss financial industry.
The technical infrastructure is now fully built and functional.
The Swiss telecom companies Sunrise, Swisscom and SWITCH as technology partners have collaboratively implemented a functional network based on SCION technology, a networking protocol developed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH Zürich) and being brought to market by Anapaya.
Access to this new network, including required certificates, is provided by Swiss service providers. As a next step, international service providers will be linked to interconnect financial institutions accessing the new network from abroad.
Stress-tested and getting ready to operationalise the new network.
Anapaya and project partners have completed extensive technical evaluations of the communication network and associated infrastructure, confirming that the new network meets business continuity requirements even under critical failure conditions. For more information, please read our blog post about the methodology and outcome of the technical evaluation here:
Before the go-live and while performing further tests, measures are being taken to operationalise the new network. This includes setting up the governance structure, defining operational procedures, and transforming the network with all its pilot components into a productive setting.
Target go-live: H2 2021
SSFN is in its final stages of delivery. Upon approval, it will be operational in the second half of 2021. Thereafter, the Swiss financial center participants will start connecting to the new network in waves to exchange data between themselves, as usual.
“Extensive testing under extreme conditions has proven the reliability and resilience of the infrastructure - made possible by the path control and inherent multipathing properties of SCION-based network architecture. This level of reliability and resilience is a vast improvement to ensure business continuity for current and future system-relevant use -cases and applications not only in the financial sector but also for other critical infrastructures.”
- Fritz Steinmann, SIX, Senior Network and Network Security Architect
