The Swiss stock exchange (SWX) was formed in 1995 by a merger between the country's three existing exchanges in Geneva, Basle and Zurich.
SWX is now the world's sixth largest securities exchange, and the third largest in Europe. It lists more than 3,500 securities, and has 60 members, 15 of whom are foreign.

The Exchange is governed by the Swiss Stock Exchange and Securities Trading Act of 1995, which includes listing requirements and continuing obligations for listed companies.
SWX has a highly-integrated electronic trading platform. It has also been innovative in product terms, launching the electronic SWX repo market in 1999, and a high-growth market called SWX New Market in the same year which has already seen a number of successful high-tech listings.

Eurex, the first transnational derivatives exchange, is a joint venture between SWX and Deutsche Borse AG. SWX is also a partner in STOXX.
Stocks, bonds and warrants are traded on the SWX Swiss Exchange. Since July 1998, SWX has also provided facilities for electronic trading in Eurobonds.

Latterly, it has introduced Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). One of the best-known SWX products is the SwissIndex family of securities market indicators. It comprises the Swiss Market Index (SMI), which is made up of the most important Swiss stocks and represents 80% of total market capitalization in Switzerland; the broader-based Swiss Performance Index (SPI), which covers all Swiss stocks (including those of Liechtenstein); and the Swiss Bond Index (SBI), which measures the performance of CHF bonds with a minimum life of one year. A separate index is published for investment companies.

After years of planning, SWX finally committed itself to a virtual future in June 2001 when its alliance with Tradepoint culminated in the launching of the virt-x pan-European electronic stock market on June 25th. The joint venture between Tradepoint, a consortium of leading international investment banks, and the Swiss exchange SWX (which stopped separate dealing in Swiss blue-chip equities) lists the top stocks from most of Europe's largest bourses on a single screen, operates with a counterparty facility provided by the London Clearing House, offers a seamless back office with clearing through Euroclear and has a single rulebook for all stocks regardless of listing location. The exchange operates under UK regulatory standards.

Virt-x offers full dealing services in all the main index stocks in France, German and Italy as well as the FTSE Eurotop 300, Stoxx and MCI indices which cover smaller European markets as well. The consortium controlling Tradepoint includes Instinet, the financial markets arm of Reuters, the investment banks ABN Amro, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and UBS Warburg, the fund manager American Century, and Archipelago, an electronic trading system.