Tag Archives: 3.) Swissinfo Business and Economy

Parliament wants to deal a fairer set of cards to Swiss pensioners. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally Pensions in Switzerland should in future be topped up to fully account for the rising cost of consumer goods, parliament has agreed. Parliament on Monday voted to modify the way payment adjustments are calculated from 2023. Currently, top ups take both inflation and rising wages into account. From the start of next year at the latest, payments should focus purely on...

Troubled Swiss bank Credit Suisse has sought to quieten rampant speculation about its upcoming strategic revamp following leaks to the media and concerns of its staff. The bank is due to announce restructuring details when it announces its third quarter earnings results on October 27. On Monday Credit Suisse took the unusual move of issuing a statement ahead of its planned strategic review update next month, mentioning a “high level of media and market...

While the pension reform, which raises the retirement age for women from 64 to 65, was narrowly accepted in Sunday’s vote, the Swiss Abroad were more strongly in favour. The majority of voting expats were also in favour of abolishing factory farming and withholding tax unlike resident citizens. My specialty is telling stories, and decoding what happens in Switzerland and the world from accumulated data and statistics. An expatriate in Switzerland for several...

Voters in Switzerland’s biggest canton have overwhelmingly approved a new article to promote a cleaner and more efficient use of resources. Just under 90% of Zurich citizens on Sunday said yes to the idea, which the cantonal government proposed as an alternative to an initiative by the young Green Party. All political parties were in favour of the idea. The canton’s constitution will therefore be adapted to include an article calling on authorities to create...

Voters have thrown out a decision by parliament to scrap withholding tax on interest from Swiss bonds. Final results show 52% of voters coming out against the reform, which was aimed at boosting investment in Switzerland as well as strengthening the country’s competitiveness and its finance industry. Cédric Wermuth, co-president of the left-wing Social Democratic Party which helped force the referendum, said voters had understood that the plan by the government and...

By normal standards, interest rates of 0.5% are considered low. But Switzerland has just emerged from a long period of negative interest after the Swiss National Bank (SNB) raised rates from -0.25% to +0.5%. When not covering fintech, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, banks and trade, swissinfo.ch’s business correspondent can be found playing cricket on various grounds in Switzerland – including the frozen lake of St Moritz. More from this author | English...

The Swiss government has given the green light to begin the construction of a temporary reserve power plant due to be operational from February next year. The executive body signed off on two decisions on Friday to speed up the approval of planning regulations for the eight-turbine plant in Birr, in the north of the country. The government had already signed a contract with the GE Gas Power company earlier this month for the CHF470 million ($480 million)...

The world’s richest people saw their wealth expand last year as stock markets and real estate gained in value, according to Swiss bank Credit Suisse. When not covering fintech, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, banks and trade, swissinfo.ch’s business correspondent can be found playing cricket on various grounds in Switzerland – including the frozen lake of St Moritz. More from this author | English DepartmentMatthew Allen Total global wealth increased by...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent worries about energy sources make the economic outlook uncertain. (c) Copyright 2022, Dpa (www.dpa.de). Alle Rechte Vorbehalten Swiss economic growth forecasts for 2022 and 2023 have been revised significantly downwards, amid uncertainty over energy supply and inflation. A government expert group has downgraded its expectations for GDP growth to 2% in 2022, compared with the 2.6% it predicted in June. For 2023, its...

The government plans to examine concrete and binding measures to save electricity in the coming weeks. © Keystone / Christian Beutler The Swiss government lacks up-to-date information on national electricity production and consumption, according to the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. This is due to the lack of digitalisation of the electricity companies. The lack of information was a focal point of Sunday news report amid rising concerns over an energy crunch in...