EBICS with Banque Cantonale de Genève: your BCGE transactions in your accounting every morning
Banque Cantonale de Genève offers EBICS access to its business customers, and YESbusiness connects to it directly: nobody between your bank and your accounting. Every morning, yesterday's statement of your BCGE account arrives on its own and your entries are prepared for you. Here is how to activate it, what you get and what it does not do.
Banque Cantonale de Genève in a few words
Banque Cantonale de Genève is the bank of the canton of Geneva, serving Geneva businesses of every size, from freelancers to the international companies based there. EBICS access is part of its business offering and is requested from your adviser.
EBICS at BCGE: what the bank publishes
What BCGE says about its EBICS offer on its own pages. Terms can change: your advisor has the last word.
- BCGE's EBICS offer is called Business link: a direct connection between the company's financial software and the bank.
- Conditions: an account with BCGE, a computer with internet access and a licence for EBICS-compatible payment or accounting software; your contact is your personal adviser.
- Business link delivers camt.052 or camt.053 statements and camt.054 QR files, with optional conversion to MT942/MT940.
- BCGE asks Business link clients to make sure their environment is EBICS 3.0 compatible, which the pain.001.001.09 format requires.
Sources: BCGE's own pages, read on 16 October 2026: BCGE Business link (PDF) · BCGE – Adresses structurées
Connecting BCGE to YESbusiness: the five steps
Two steps depend on you, one on YESbusiness, two on Banque Cantonale de Genève. Allow a few minutes on your side and a few business days on the bank's.
- 1Ask Banque Cantonale de Genève for EBICS. Through your adviser or the corporate e-banking desk. The bank opens the access on your contract and gives you a customer number (Customer ID or Partner ID) and a user identifier (User ID).
- 2Pick BCGE in YESbusiness and enter the two identifiers. YESbusiness generates the keys of your connection, registers them with Banque Cantonale de Genève's EBICS server and opens the initialization letter, which carries the fingerprints of your public keys.
- 3Print, sign and send the letter to Banque Cantonale de Genève. Your signature is what authorizes the bank to activate the access. The letter contains no secret: only the fingerprints the bank compares with what it received electronically.
- 4Banque Cantonale de Genève checks and activates the access. Usually within a few business days. On activation, YESbusiness fetches the bank's public keys, verifies their fingerprints and runs the first download.
- 5Your BCGE accounts are connected. The bank sends the IBANs covered by the access; you link each one to a cash account. From there, every morning, yesterday's statement arrives and is booked with your rules.
Nobody between BCGE and your accounting
YESbusiness carries its own EBICS client. It generates your keys, announces itself to Banque Cantonale de Genève's EBICS server, verifies the bank's keys and downloads your statements itself. Your data travels from BCGE's server to YESbusiness's server, encrypted end to end, with no aggregation platform and no robot on your e-banking.
Your BCGE e-banking username and password are never asked for. EBICS rests on keys generated for your connection and on a signed letter Banque Cantonale de Genève verifies.
What to know before signing the letter
- Read-only. YESbusiness reads your BCGE statements; it sends no payment order. Your transfers continue to be made in Banque Cantonale de Genève's e-banking.
- Daily, not real time. The channel delivers the end-of-day statement (camt.053) of the previous business day. A movement from this morning appears tomorrow morning.
- Banque Cantonale de Genève opens the channel. EBICS is requested from the bank, not from YESbusiness. Most Swiss banks open it free of charge for business customers; a few charge for it. Ask your BCGE adviser.
- A few days to activate. Between sending the signed letter and Banque Cantonale de Genève's activation, allow a few business days. In the meantime, the camt.053 file downloaded from BCGE e-banking can be imported by hand.
Frequently asked questions about EBICS with BCGE
Does Banque Cantonale de Genève offer EBICS?
Yes, to its business customers. It is a service the bank opens on your contract; ask your adviser or BCGE's corporate e-banking desk.
How much does EBICS cost at BCGE?
On the YESbusiness side, nothing beyond the subscription: the connection is included. On the bank side, EBICS is usually free in Switzerland; a few banks charge a setup fee or a flat rate. One call to your BCGE adviser is enough to find out.
Do I have to give YESbusiness my BCGE e-banking login?
Never. EBICS works with a dedicated access Banque Cantonale de Genève opens in your name and keys generated for your connection, not with your e-banking login.
Can I pay my BCGE invoices from YESbusiness?
No. YESbusiness uses EBICS read-only: it fetches your statements, it sends no payment orders. Your transfers stay in Banque Cantonale de Genève's e-banking.
I have several accounts at BCGE, or other banks?
One BCGE EBICS connection can cover several accounts at the bank; each IBAN is linked to a cash account. Every other bank has its own EBICS connection, and a company can have as many as it has banks.
Other banks
YESbusiness is Swiss accounting, the EBICS connection to Banque Cantonale de Genève and VAT returns from CHF 12.90 per month. Two-week free trial.
Try YESbusiness with BCGE