Swiss National Bank's eligible bonds exceed 3,000; digital bonds also accepted as repo collateral

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced on October 29 in Geneva that digital bonds meeting eligibility requirements can now be used as collateral in repo transactions, provided they are issued on SIX's distributed ledger technology (DLT) infrastructure and can be delivered via SIX SIS. As of late September, SNB's eligible collateral list included over 3,000 bond types with a notional value of approximately 10 trillion Swiss francs. The central bank has included digital bonds in its eligible collateral list since 2023, though not all tokens qualify simply for being issued digitally. This move matters because it formally integrates DLT-based securities into Switzerland's traditional short-term funding markets, potentially deepening liquidity for tokenized debt instruments. Market participants should watch for the specific eligibility criteria details and adoption rates of digital bonds in repo transactions going forward.