
Center for Innovative Finance
Driving Financial Innovation
The «Center for Innovative Finance» (CIF) of the University of Basel is dedicated to researching practical issues in Fintech, Digital Banking, and Innovative Finance. Our research focuses on the scientific analysis and practical implementation of blockchain projects, venturing, and innovative financial solutions. With this research focus, the CIF is unique in Switzerland and makes a decisive contribution to the research and application of future-oriented technologies - also in the context of societal consequences. In pursuing these objectives, great importance is attached to comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis.
Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technology
Blockchain is an innovation in governance and can create a neutral infrastructure. It allows economic agents to hold and transfer virtual assets in the absence of centralized intermediaries, and has the potential to fundamentally change the financial infrastructure. The CIF studies the potential, risks, and implications on financial markets, industries, and society at large.
Venturing
Developing groundbreaking research, e.g., biomedical research aimed at curing cancer or the development of more effective antibiotics and medicines for treating rare illnesses, demands enormous investment over a long period. Only a few research results become marketable products, but successful ones are potentially highly valuable to society.
Quantitative Finance & Innovation
The past few decades were marked by substantial changes in the patterns of finance and investment: Private equity-investment vehicles mobilized an enormous amount of capital for start-up firms and other innovative companies to access. Economic research about the social consequences of financial innovations is therefore extremely important but often neglected.
Latest News

/ News, Conference
SNB-CIF Conference on Cryptoassets and Financial Innovation 2025
The Center for Innovative Finance and the Swiss National Bank organize the next Conference on Cryptoassets and Financial Innovation on 20 June 2025
/ News
Nie wieder eine Bank retten – was ist zu tun?
[GER] Prof. Yvan Lengwiler bei SRF im Tagesgespräch