SARON study guide
SARON · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
SARON - the Swiss Average Rate Overnight - is the reference rate for the Swiss franc money market, administered by SIX in cooperation with the Swiss National Bank. An examination carrying this name tests whether a candidate understands how that rate is produced, how products referencing it are priced and settled, and how trading and post-trade activity around it is governed on SIX Swiss Exchange. The SARON study guide has 7 sections and about 2,972 words.
01Swiss Money Market and Interest Rate Environment
This domain tests how the CHF money market actually clears: how the SNB steers short-term rates, which instruments build the CHF curve, and why SARON sits where it does inside that framework. Questions typically ask you to turn a policy decision into a cash-flow or curve outcome, not to recite definitions.
443 words, about 2 min02SARON Reference Rate: Methodology, Calculation and Publication
This domain tests whether you understand SARON as a governed benchmark: what data it is built from, how the number is produced and published, and how the overnight fixings are turned into the compounded term rates used in contracts. SARON (Swiss Average Rate Overnight) is the CHF secured overnight reference rate, calculated from Swiss franc repo activity and administered by SIX Financial Information AG under a published, IOSCO-consistent methodology.
457 words, about 2 min03SARON-Based Products and Derivatives
This domain tests whether you can price and document instruments that pay compounded SARON: cash products such as floating-rate notes, and derivatives such as OIS, futures and basis swaps. Most marks are lost on conventions and on the difference between backward-looking compounded SARON and a forward-looking term rate.
411 words, about 2 min04Trading, Order Handling and Market Conduct on SIX Swiss Exchange
This domain tests the mechanics of the SIX order book and the conduct rules that sit around it: order types and validity, trading phases and price determination, priority, and the abuse prohibitions enforced by SIX Exchange Regulation and FINMA. Order types: market, limit, stop (stop-market and stop-limit), and hidden/reserve orders.
399 words, about 2 min05Regulatory Framework and Compliance
This domain tests the Swiss rule map around SARON business and client-facing conduct: which statute does what, who is authorised for what, and which obligations attach to a given client and product. Precision about the regulator and the statute is where marks are won.
401 words, about 2 min06Risk Management and Controls
This domain tests how a SARON-driven book is measured, limited and hedged, and which control failures the examiner expects you to spot. Expect questions that combine interest rate risk in the banking book, basis risk, liquidity and hedge sizing.
412 words, about 2 min07Market Data, Reporting and Post-Trade Processes
This domain tests the pipeline after the trade: how SIX market and benchmark data may be used, what must be reported and to whom, how trades are cleared and settled, and where reconciliation breaks typically appear. SIX Swiss Exchange distributes real-time and delayed data, level 1 and level 2, under licence.
449 words, about 2 min