Tag Archives: 3) Swiss Markets and News

© Leonid Eremeychuk | Dreamstime.com The high and rising suicide rate among Switzerland’s male farmers stands in contrast to the declining rate among rural men working in other professions, according to a new study by the University of Bern published by the newspaper SonntagsZeitung. The rate among rural men working outside farming is 33 per 100,000, compared to 38 per 100,000 among farmers, a rate that has risen since...

Swiss institutions are adapting to an increasingly cashless society The Swiss Competition Commission has searched the premises of Credit Suisse and UBS, PostFinance and the credit card companies Swisscard and Aduno for allegedly boycotting mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. The Competition Commissionexternal link said on Thursday it had opened an investigation on Tuesday. The Swiss financial...

Born in 1960, Urs Roth had been working for Visana since 1995 The president of the Swiss insurance firm Visana, Urs Roth, committed suicide on Monday, the firm has announced. In recent years, several top Swiss executives have taken their lives. “It is with great sadness that we inform you about the death of our Chairman of the Executive Board, Mr. Urs Roth, who took his own life yesterday,” Visana said in a brief...

French President Emmanuel Macron making the call, on Monday. In Paris on Monday, several hundred governments and tech companies – and Switzerland – signed a new charter for trust and security online. In the so-called ‘Paris Callexternal link’, launched by French President Macron at the UNESCO Internet Governance Forum in Paris, signatories pledged to support “an open, safe, stable, accessible, and peaceful cyberspace”...

The suicide rate among Swiss farmers is almost 40% higher than the average for men in rural areas, a study has found. The main causes are fears about the future and financial worries. A survey by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), reported in the SonntagsZeitung, found that between 1991 and 2014, 447 Swiss farmers took their lives. While the overall suicide rate among Swiss men living in rural areas has...

The headquarters of the PKB Private Bank in Lugano, Switzerland Eighteen managers at the Swiss private bank PKB Privatbank are being investigated in Italy for fiscal fraud and money laundering, according to an Italian prosecutor. The Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office, led by Francesco Greco, is carrying out the investigation against the officials, who are residents in Italy where PKB owns the Italian private bank Cassa...

UBS says the DOJ is likely to seek “unspecified monetary civil penalties” dating back to 2006 and 2007. UBS Group AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, says it will “vigorously” contest a United States Department of Justice lawsuit concerning mortgage-backed securities it sold in the run-up to the 2008 global financial crisis. In a statement issued on Wednesdayexternal link, UBS said it had been advised that the DOJ intends...

Sygnum’s Swiss HQ is situated in the heart of Zurich’s banking district. Some of the doyens of the Swiss financial industry, including former Swiss National Bank president Philipp Hildebrand and ex-UBS CEO Peter Wuffli, have joined the cryptoasset revolution with new financial services operator Sygnum. The Swiss-Singapore enterprise announced itself suddenly on Thursday after operating in stealth mode for months. It is...

© Scyther5 | Dreamstime.com After a referendum in March 2018 threatened to axe Switzerland’s costly broadcasting fee, the government put forward a counter proposal, which was adopted when 71.6% of voters voted to keep the fee. On 1 January 2019, the lower fee contained in the government’s plan will come into force. Next year, instead of CHF 451, each household will need to cough up CHF 365. Virtually every household...

The Titlis is a popular tourist destination in central Switzerland. with up to 2,000 visitors a day. (Source: Herzog & De Meuron) Plans have been presented to upgrade a popular tourist destination on a mountain top in central Switzerland. As part of the CHF100 million ($100 million) project on the Titlis, a building made of steel and glass will be added to the existing tower for technical installations on 3,028...