Customer Control is the Hallmark of SAMFCore's Financial Services Platform

SAMFCore is Swiss AMF AG’s white-label financial services software platform for banking, payments, cards and crypto. The company’s licensing and source-code options put customer control at the centre of its offering, while integrations and regulatory responsibilities remain with the operator.

SAMFCore is a white-label financial services software platform from Zug-based Swiss AMF AG. The company offers fintech software solutions combining conventional accounts, payments and cards with cryptocurrency services for financial institutions and fintechs. According to the company, development began in 2018 and the platform first entered service in 2021. Its offering comes as more regulated firms in Switzerland and the EU move to offer digital assets next to traditional banking products.

The timing reflects a broader shift. Swiss banks including PostFinance, Zürcher Kantonalbank and several private banks have added crypto trading or custody in recent years, while the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), fully applicable since the end of 2024, has created a licensing route for crypto-asset service providers across the bloc. Many of those firms still run crypto and fiat services on separate systems.

What is SAMFCore? Banking, payments, cards and crypto

According to the company's product information, SAMFCore brings multi-currency accounts, transfers, card management, crypto wallets, exchange functions and fiat-to-crypto conversion into one white-label environment, together with onboarding, ledger and back-office tools. Operators would present the service under their own brand.

The platform is also older than it may look. Swiss AMF says development began in 2018 and that SAMFCore first entered service in 2021, giving it several years in live use before the current round of bank and fintech interest in digital assets. That build-and-run history is longer than that of many crypto-infrastructure products brought to market in recent years, although the company has not published details of the deployments in which the software has been used.

SAMFCore is software, not a financial institution. A licence does not give an operator bank accounts, card-network access, custody or permission to provide regulated services. Those depend on the banks, payment institutions, card issuers and custodians connected to each deployment, and on the licences the operator holds.

SAMFCore licensing: perpetual terms and source-code access

The most distinctive element is licensing. Core banking and banking-as-a-service vendors commonly charge recurring fees that rise with customer numbers or transaction volume. Swiss AMF says SAMFCore is available on annual or perpetual terms, and that under the perpetual model, adding customers or transactions does not by itself trigger additional software licence fees.

“Our competition widely charges ongoing extra fees for the number of customers. We don't do that, and we never charge transaction fees after the sale. We don't keep our hand in the cookie jar after we sell the SAMFCore license.”

— Marvin Rowe, SAMFCore

Two higher-tier packages, Perpetual + Full Source Code and Enterprise Global, include access to the source code, according to the company. That could appeal to operators wary of vendor lock-in, though the scope of rights to modify the code is set by contract, and source-code access does not transfer ownership of the underlying intellectual property.

“We believe financial institutions should control their technology strategy, not be constrained by their software provider. Our perpetual licensing model allows businesses to grow without increasing software licence fees simply because they add more customers or transactions, while our source-code licensing options provide the technological independence to modify, develop and evolve their platform as their business grows. The result is greater cost predictability, long-term control and freedom from traditional vendor lock-in.”

— Marvin Rowe, SAMFCore

Licensing is only one part of the cost. Hosting, security, maintenance, integration work and third-party provider fees remain, and no independent cost comparison with competing platforms is available.

Banking and crypto integrations: the partner question

Swiss AMF describes an integration framework for connecting banking, payment, card, identity-verification, compliance, custody and liquidity providers, with options for customer-controlled deployment. In practice, choosing and connecting those partners is where much of the implementation effort in this kind of project lies. Switching a bank or card provider typically still requires new contracts, technical work, testing and in some cases regulatory approval.

Compliance responsibilities stay with the operator

The platform's back-office tools include onboarding and verification workflows, permissions, transaction review, fee management, reporting and anti-money-laundering support. Supervisors such as FINMA hold the licensed firm, not its software supplier, responsible for meeting due-diligence and reporting obligations. Software tooling does not amount to regulatory certification.

Migrating to SAMFCore: Progressive Cutover Migration

For firms replacing an existing system, the company describes a "Progressive Cutover Migration": preparing data and integrations, moving users in stages and validating before a final switch. Migration support is included in the higher licence packages. Core-system migrations are among the riskiest projects in financial services, and their success depends heavily on the legacy platform, data quality and provider cooperation.

What remains to be seen

SAMFCore enters a crowded field of core-banking and crypto-infrastructure vendors. The key questions for prospective users are which functions work out of the box, which need custom integration, and how ongoing operating costs compare with alternatives.

Read at SAMFCore / Swiss AMF AG

Sources

1. SAMFCore — All-in-One Banking, Payments, Cards & Crypto Software
2. SAMFCore — Platform Licensing
3. SAMFCore — Perpetual Software Licence
4. SAMFCore — Switch to SAMFCore and Progressive Cutover Migration
5. SAMFCore — Card Issuing Platform
6. SAMFCore — Crypto & Digital Assets
7. SAMFCore — Platform Features
8. SAMFPay — Payment Gateway & Orchestration Software

Not financial, legal or investment advice.