Between 24 and 26 October 2026, nine Swiss regional banks stopped receiving cross-border payments under a BIC code of their own. Each now has a branch code of Entris Banking AG, the Gümligen bank that acts as a central clearing bank for Swiss banks: Bank Thalwil is now RBABCH22BKT, Bank EEK RBABCH22EEK, and so on. Eight of the old codes were removed from the ISO 9362 BIC directory in October. The ninth, Ersparniskasse Rüeggisberg's EKRUCH21, is still listed, although the bank says its code changed on 26 October.
Six of the banks told their own customers on their websites. We found no report that puts the nine together, and nothing from Entris or from SIX.
The nine codes
An eight-character BIC is an institution's own code; an eleven-character code adds a branch. The first eight characters of every new code, RBABCH22, are Entris Banking's, and the last three name the regional bank.
| Bank | Old code | New code | From, per the bank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank EEK, Bern | EEKBCH22 | RBABCH22EEK | 24 October |
| Bezirks-Sparkasse Dielsdorf | BZSDCH22 | RBABCH22BSD | 24 October |
| Spar- und Leihkasse Bucheggberg | SLBUCH22 | RBABCH22SLB | 24 October |
| Bank Gantrisch | BGAGCH22 | RBABCH22BGA | 24 or 26 October |
| BBO Bank Brienz Oberhasli | BBOBCH22 | RBABCH22BBO | 26 October |
| Ersparniskasse Rüeggisberg | EKRUCH21 | RBABCH22EKR | 26 October |
| Bank Thalwil | BKTHCH22 | RBABCH22BKT | not stated |
| Spar- und Leihkasse Frutigen | SLFFCH22 | RBABCH22SLF | not stated |
| Bank EKI, Interlaken | EKIICH22 | RBABCH22EKI | not stated |
The directory dates all nine new codes 31 October. For the other three we found no notice: Bank Thalwil and Spar- und Leihkasse Frutigen show the new code in their page footers, and for all three the Swiss bank master below confirms it. All nine are members of the ESPRIT network of Swiss regional banks, and the banks that give a reason name a change of systems.
What changes on a payment
The IBAN does not change: a Swiss IBAN carries the bank's clearing number, so the account still points to the right bank. What changes is the code of the beneficiary's bank, in an ISO 20022 pacs.008 message the creditor agent's BICFI. Dielsdorf's notice spells it out for payers abroad:
The Swiss bank master kept by SIX already agrees: in its edition valid on 2 November 2026, each of the nine clearing numbers carries its new RBABCH22 code, and none of the old codes appears. A system that looks up the BIC from a Swiss IBAN gets the new code. A supplier or beneficiary record typed in years ago keeps the old one.
A model these banks join
Entris offers client banks a connection "mit einem eigenen BIC oder einem Branch BIC von Entris Banking", with their own BIC or an Entris branch BIC, on its service page. Besides Entris itself, the bank master lists 47 Swiss banks under an RBABCH22 branch code, 38 of them before this change, among them Bank SLM and Bernerland Bank. The nine leaned on Entris already: in the settlement instructions on file at Ohmyfin, all eight banks whose codes were withdrawn named Entris as their correspondent for US dollars, and five for euros as well.
What a payer can check
A beneficiary record at any of the nine banks that still names the old code is the one to compare with the bank's notice, linked in the table. Rüeggisberg is the case where the directory alone can mislead: it still lists both codes, and the bank's notice names the new one.
Any code can be looked up in the BIC directory.
Where this comes from
The register facts come from the public ISO 9362 directory of BIC codes, editions of 1 October and 1 November 2026; the dates of the change are the banks' own, and the clearing numbers come from the SIX bank master valid on 2 November 2026. The correspondent figures are from the settlement instructions on file at Ohmyfin and are a floor: a bank that filed nothing is not counted.