Legacy: from cantonal regulation to federal law and SIX

The buildings

The first exchange building on the Bahnhofstrasse served until 1930. It was replaced by a new building in the so-called Börsenblock between the Talstrasse and the Schanzengraben, designed and built between 1928 and 1930 by the Zurich architects Henauer and Witschi.¹ In 1992 the exchange moved again, to a new building at the Selnau near the Stauffacherbrücke. Ten years later its operator, by then a joint-stock company, relocated to the Selnaustrasse.² Each move reflected the growth of the market and the change in its technology, from the ring of 1880 to the electronic trading system of the 1990s. The canton’s obligation under the law of 1912 to provide premises for the exchange accompanied the first two of these moves.

From cantonal law to the federal Stock Exchange Act

The cantonal regulatory model established between 1883 and 1912 survived for more than eighty years. Its end came through the combination of technology and federal legislation. In 1993 the Geneva, Basel and Zurich exchanges formed an integrated Swiss exchange. In 1996 the introduction of the electronic trading system was completed and floor trading came to an end.³ The last bell of the Zurich ring rang on 15 August 1996, ending an epoch that had lasted more than a century.⁴

The legal transformation took the form of the Federal Act on Stock Exchanges and Securities Trading (Börsengesetz, BEHG) of 24 March 1995, which entered into force on 1 February 1997, with certain provisions following on 1 January 1998.⁵ The Act required anyone operating an exchange to obtain federal authorisation. Its stated purpose was to ensure transparency and equal treatment of investors and to maintain the functioning of the securities markets. With the BEHG, the cantonal laws on securities trading, including the Zurich law of 1912, lost their field of application. The federal act itself has since been largely replaced by the Financial Market Infrastructure Act and related legislation, which are treated in Part H.

Structurally, however, the federal act preserved the essential features of the Zurich model. The operator of the exchange remained a private body with its own regulatory organs, subject to authorisation and supervision by a public authority. Self-regulation within a public frame, the principle that the Zurich law of 1883 had introduced, became the principle of federal exchange law. In 2008 the Swiss exchange merged with SIS Group and Telekurs into the SIX Group and was renamed SIX Swiss Exchange.⁶ Its seat remains in Zurich, a short distance from the Bahnhofstrasse where the first exchange hall was built.

The exchange and Zurich’s rise

The Zurich exchange was one of several factors in the city’s rise to become the leading Swiss financial centre. The banks, the insurance companies, the Polytechnikum, the railways and the political weight of the canton each played their part, as the other chapters of Part D show. The exchange nevertheless performed functions that no other institution could have performed. It gave the securities issued in Zurich a liquid market and an official price. It brought together the financial community of the city every day. It also provided a public space in which the value of companies and of public debt was tested continuously against the judgement of investors.

The first practical lesson that practitioners can draw from this history concerns the importance of trust in intermediaries. The Zurich legislators of 1883 recognised that the integrity of prices depends on the integrity of those who form them. This insight lies behind every modern licensing requirement for securities firms. A second lesson concerns the value of a balanced relationship between private organisation and public supervision. Zurich avoided both the laissez-faire of an unregulated market and the nationalised exchange of Basel. Its middle course has proved durable. A third lesson concerns the sensitivity of markets to taxation. The history of stamp duties shows that exchanges compete with each other for transactions, so that fiscal decisions can shift business between financial centres within a few years.

Notes

1. “Alte Börse (Zürich)”, Wikipedia (German), https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alte_B%C3%B6rse_(Z%C3%BCrich). The building remained the largest Swiss securities trading venue until 1992. ↩
2. “SIX Swiss Exchange”, Wikipedia (German), https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIX_Swiss_Exchange. ↩
3. HLS, Meyerhans, “Börsen”, http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/d/D13741.php. The HLS also names the founding of Soffex, the Swiss options and futures exchange, in 1986 and the launch of Eurex in 1998. ↩
4. “SIX Swiss Exchange”, Wikipedia (German), https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIX_Swiss_Exchange, which quotes the phrase “eine Epoche, die über ein Jahrhundert angedauert hatte”. The Swiss Finance Museum gives the same date for the closure of the bond ring. ↩
5. Bundesgesetz über die Börsen und den Effektenhandel (Börsengesetz, BEHG) of 24 March 1995, SR 954.1, text and notes on entry into force, LexFind, https://www.lexfind.ch/tolv/148081/de. ↩
6. “SIX Swiss Exchange”, Wikipedia (English), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIX_Swiss_Exchange. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.