Tag Archives: 3.) Swiss Info

Access to home ownership became more expensive. (© Keystone / Ennio Leanza) Rents in Switzerland fell by an average of 0.5% last year but some regions bucked the trend. Last year was a good one for tenants, according to the Swiss Real Estate Offer Indexexternal link, which was published on Tuesday. December alone saw rents dropping 0.4% on average. The most significant drops were in central Switzerland (-1.7%), the Lake Geneva region (-1.1%) and northwestern...

Swatch CEO Nick Hayek has offered an olive branch to the competition commission. (Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi) Switzerland’s largest watch maker, Swatch, says it will limit the number of movements it makes for the industry in a bid to end a long-running stand-off with the anti-trust regulator. At the end of last year, the Competition Commission (Comco) temporarily suspended deliveries of watch movements from Swatch’s ETA unit to big rivals from January 1, 2020....

The first commercial prototype from Energy Vault is 60 metres tall and will be built next year. (Energy Vault) Stacking blocks of concrete with a crane to store energy and use the force of gravity to keep producing electricity when renewable sources are lacking: simple but revolutionary, the battery solution proposed by the Ticino start-up Energy Vault is attracting investors and customers from around the world.  What do we do when there is no sun or wind? Energy...

The annual WEF meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos attracts some 3,000 people: global leaders, industry chiefs and bigwigs from the worlds of civil society, religion, technology and the arts. (© Keystone / Laurent Gillieron) The US delegation at the upcoming World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in Davos will be led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. It is unclear whether President Donald Trump will again attend the annual event. The White House confirmed on...

The drive for financial innovation shows no sign of slacking in 2020. (Keystone/ Valentin Flauraud) It was a busy 2019 for Swiss fintech and there is promise for more to come in 2020. Here’s a round-up of fintech past and my observations of how things may shape up in the coming months. Licenses The year 2019 started with the arrival of a new breed of Fintech banking license, designed to allow small financial players to accept up to CHF100 million in deposits, but...

Leibstadt was built in 1984 and is one of four nuclear power stations in Switzerland (Keystone) The Leibstadt nuclear power station in northern Switzerland has been disconnected from the power grid and shut down because of a technical fault. Once the cause has been clarified, the plant will be put back into operation as soon as possible, the operator said. It is not clear when that will be. The shutdown at Leibstadt – built in 1984 and one of four nuclear power...

The Swiss position will be a disappointment for Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and CEO of Facebook Facebook’s Libra project needs reworking to be approved, according to the president of Switzerland, where the cryptocurrency is seeking regulatory consent. “I don’t think [Libra has a chance in its current form], because central banks will not accept the basket of currencies underpinning it,” Finance Minister Ueli Maurer, who held the rotating presidency in 2019, told Swiss...

The logo of FINMA, the Swiss financial watchdog (© Keystone / Gaetan Bally) The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA says it will have an independent auditor investigate Swiss bank Credit Suisse “in the context of observation activities”. “The observation activities carried out by Credit Suisse raise various compliance issues,” FINMA said in a statement on Friday eveningexternal link. “FINMA’s ongoing investigations of this matter will now be stepped up...

The country’s current fleet of F-5 Tigers and F/A-18s is ageing. (Keystone / Peter Klaunzer) The Swiss parliament has approved the purchase of a new fleet of fighter jets to the tune of some CHF6 billion ($6.1 billion). The plans may yet face approval by citizens. Both chambers of parliament have now accepted plans proposed by the government to buy up to 30 new fighter jets, a step it says is vital for the stability and security of the country. As the current fleet...

The Swiss Senate sitting in Bern earlier this week. (Keystone / Anthony Anex) The Swiss parliament has given the go-ahead for a free trade deal with Indonesia, although not without debates about sustainability and the Asian country’s production of palm oil. Almost exactly a year after the deal was signed between the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and Indonesia, the Swiss parliament gave its green light on Thursday. Switzerland and EFTA members Liechtenstein,...