As part of SFTI’s constant effort to generate benefits for its member companies as well as for the Swiss economy as a whole, by the end of 2016 a workgroup on data privacy was established. Setting up this workgroup was motivated by upcoming personal data regulations here in Switzerland as well as internationally. Another driving force was the rising awareness among citizens about the use of personal data.
By July 2017, this workgroup finished its activities successfully as scheduled.
The workgroup’s focus was on one hand to draft an industry-first ontology and semantic structure for personal data of financial service providers. On the other hand, the workgroup conducted a Proof of Concept resulting in a solution that may be used by customers to request access to their personal data a specific company is storing. This MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in turn sets the basics for ZOA, an innovative solution for data protection. ZOA shall become a unique platform that can help companies deal with several complex issues around data protection regulation, such as personal data access or data portability requests and consent management.
To conduct the PoC, Swiss Fintech Innovations partnered with the Swiss startup Swiss Fin Lab GmbH – who participated in the first Kickstart Accelerator 2016 in Zurich – and SFTI member companies like Swiss Life, Raiffeisen and Syz Bank joined the workgroup among other financial service providers.
“Working together, sharing knowledge and shaping best practices across different companies is the appropriate way to deal with interbranch regulatory challenges.” states Jürgen Petry, Co-Director at SFTI and workgroup leader “Furthermore, to team up with a promising newcomer like Swiss Fin Lab is a successful example of SFTI’s commitment to drive collaboration and digital innovations in the financial services industry together with Swiss Fintech Startups”.
For the startup company Swiss Fin Lab GmbH, this PoC will be the basis to further explore how personal data regulation and digital identities can be used in new services while preserving privacy for individuals. Swiss Fin Lab GmbH will pursue this with corporate partners.
For more information, please contact SFTI via info@swissfintechinnovations.ch, or Swiss Fin Lab via bernhard.obenhuber@zoa.me.