A Bermuda-based company has hit the headlines in Switzerland following the handing over of the Swiss Federal Council's Department of Economic Affairs by President Doris Leuthard to the newly-elected Bundesrat, Johann Schneider-Amman.

QuoVadis' SuisseID for digitally signing official documents was presented to Mr Schneider-Amman along with a bottle of Swiss wine and the key to his office as part of the ritual at the ceremony held yesterday, which was screened on Swiss national TV.

SuisseID is a national programme in Switzerland where the government has subsidised the rollout of digital certificates on smartcards to citizens and business users.

At the same time, the government is assisting many prominent public sector and business websites to become SuisseID enabled. It works with the use of a single secure electronic credential to access a broad range of e-commerce and e-government services, providing strong identification of the user, the technology to encrypt information for privacy, and the ability to create legally binding digital signatures.

QuoVadis is one of the four appointed issuers of SuisseID cards, and has partnered with SBB (the Swiss national railroad) to provide sign-up locations at rail stations across the country. In addition to issuing SuisseIDs to the public and to the corporate sector, QuoVadis has a large programme to issue SuisseIDs to members of the Swiss Bar Association and to a wide variety of producers in the Swiss agricultural industry.

QuoVadis has operations in Switzerland, Holland, and the UK and group CEO Roman Brunner relocated to Switzerland in 2008 to lead the company's European expansion.