Tag Archives: 3.) Swiss Info

The new CHF100 banknote was issued on September 12, but it has not gone totally smoothly. (Keystone / Peter Klaunzer) The new CHF100 ($100) banknote, which went into circulation last month, has blocked bank ATMs in half a dozen German-speaking Swiss cantons. Bank machines belonging to the PostFinance bank do not seem to like the new blue CHF100 note, which was officially launched on September 12. “Recently, practically every time I try to withdraw money, the...

The Swiss workforce and labour market get high marks in the index. (© Keystone / Gaetan Bally) Switzerland has slipped down a slot in the annual Global Competitiveness Index from the World Economic Forum (WEF)external link. Having come in fourth in 2018, Switzerland now follows Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. The index covers 141 countries. The world economy is not ready for a major slowdown, warns WEF. “Ten years on from the global...

Switzerland is the only country among the 47 members of the Council of Europe which does not have a law governing political party financing. (© Keystone / Gaetan Bally) Switzerland’s biggest firms – mainly banks, pharmaceutical firms and insurance companies – donate at least CHF5 million ($5 million) a year to political parties and candidates, a survey has revealed. The poll of 140 companies by Swiss public radio RTS, published on Tuesdayexternal link, found that one...

Mirjana Spoljaric was appointed Assistant Secretary-General and Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2018. (Keystone) When Antonio Guterres was elected United Nations Secretary General in 2016, some criticized the decision because they thought a woman should finally be at the helm of the international organisation. To his credit, Guterres has filled many of the UN’s top posts with women including Mirjana Spoljaric –...

Data held by around 7,500 Swiss financial institutions like banks, trusts, and insurers were used to compile the information. (© Keystone / Alessandro Della Valle) In its second-ever data sharing exercise as part of a global automatic exchange of information (AEOI) treaty, Switzerland shared financial account information with 63 partner countries. On Monday, the Swiss Federal Tax Authority revealed that it had provided details of around 3.1 million bank accounts held...

File photo of former Credit Suisse (and UBS) CEO Oswald Grübel, who’s German, by the way (Keystone / Walter Bieri) In an interview with the newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, former Credit Suisse CEO Oswald Grübel has criticized the large Swiss bank for its handling of the current crisis. By maintaining that CEO Tidjane Thiam was unaware of the spying affair, the bank is harming the Swiss financial sector, Grübel said in an interview published on Sunday. Foreign media are...

Around one in seven Swiss say they have been hacked at some time or another. (Keystone / Sascha Steinbach) Hackers successfully attacked the website of the Swiss Consumer Protection Foundation last month, placing links to fake stores within the agency’s online shopping pages. The hack was detected within two hours and the malicious links were removed, said the foundationexternal link, which regularly warns consumers about online fraud. The agency said it was unlikely...

Canton Obwalden’s low tax rates attract companies and millionaires (Keystone) European Union finance ministers are set to remove Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from the bloc’s lists of countries deemed to act as tax havens, an EU document said. On October 10 they are expected to remove Switzerland from the grey list that includes countries that have committed to change their tax rules to make them compliant with EU standards. Switzerland has delivered...

Joint research activities will be carried out at the Novartis Campus in Basel, Switzerland, at the Novartis Global Service Center in Dublin, Ireland, and at Microsoft Research Lab in Cambridge, Britain. (© Keystone / Georgios Kefalas) Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis and computer giant Microsoft have signed a five-year partnership deal aimed at transforming the Basel-based pharma’s business – from finance to manufacturing – using artificial intelligence. The new...

While this year’s festival was seen as an artistic success, the event has left a huge hole in the organisers’ finances (© Keystone / Valentin Flauraud) The organisers of the Fête des Vignerons – a traditional winegrowers’ festival in the Swiss lakeside town of Vevey – is scrambling to cover its multi-million-franc deficit for 2019. The local winegrowers’ guild behind the once-in-a-generation private festival, which started in the 17th century, reported a CHF15...