Tag Archives: Business

The United States blacklisted NSO in November 2021 over the abuse of the powerful Pegasus cyberweapon by its clients. Keystone / Atef Safadi Credit Suisse pushed for NSO Group to keep selling its Pegasus spyware to new customers just weeks after the US blacklisted the Israeli cyberweapon manufacturer, saying authoritarian regimes had used its hacking tool to silence dissent. The request was made in a December letter by lawyers representing the Swiss bank and some of...

The Ukrainian funds available to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for 2022 will not affect projects elsewhere, an official said on Thursday. Before the Russian invasion in February, the SDC had earmarked CHF25 million ($26 million) for development and cooperation projects in Ukraine; parliament has since boosted this by CHF61 million, SDC director Patricia Danzi said on Thursday. On top of this, various other ministries have sent development...

In canton Zug in central Switzerland, the richest 10% earn almost half of all income and provide 88% of all cantonal tax revenue. Keystone / Urs Flueeler While the gap between rich and poor has been steadily widening in many countries, the situation in Switzerland has remained stable over the past decades, according to recent statistics. Yet while income distribution in the Alpine nation is relatively egalitarian, wealth is more concentrated in the hands of the...

The Swiss National Bank is not prepared to release any further reserves. Keystone / Martin Ruetschi The Swiss National Bank (SNB) continues to beat off demands to fight inflation by raising interest rates and to distribute more reserves to cantons and other causes. SNB president Barbara Janom Steiner showed signs of frustration in a speech on Friday that defended the policies of the central bank. “There are ever more varied proposals – and indeed, increasingly,...

There have been some 1,700 cases of suspected Covid-19 loan frauds reported since the start of the pandemic. © Keystone / Ennio Leanza The number of reported suspicious financial transactions continued to rise in Switzerland in 2021, but at a lower rate than in the first year of the pandemic. Switzerland’s Money Laundering Reporting Office (MROS) saw a 12% increase of suspicious activity reports last year to reach 5,962. For the second year in a row, a significant...

For the Swiss government, applying such a sweeping set of sanctions is a work in progress. Keystone / Peter Klaunzer There’s a well-worn Swiss bankers joke about the venality of a particular country. The actual country changes with the times but since this is April 2022, it starts like this: “Where is the capital of Russia?” You can guess the punchline. Two months into Vladimir Putin’s brutal war of aggression in Ukraine, however, what is remarkable is just how...

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is very opaque by international standards. That has to change, says Yvan Lengwiler, professor of economics at the University of Basel. He explains his proposals in the latest Geldcast update. “There is no right to secrecy,” says Yvan Lengwiler – not even at the Swiss National Bank. He has joined forces with Stefan Gerlach of the EFG Bank and Charles Wyplosz, a professor at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, to form the “SNB...

Prices in Switzerland are on the rise, albeit less drastically than in the EU and the US. © Keystone / Christian Beutler Trade unions say middle- and lower-income workers in Switzerland are facing a “shock” in 2022, with wages unable to offset rising inflation and health insurance costs. With inflation currently over 2% in Switzerland, the cost of living is going up, and workers need a salary boost to offset this, said the country’s biggest trade union group on...

Peace marchers head towards the centre of Bern on Monday © Keystone/peter Schneider The traditional Easter march has taken place in the Swiss capital, Bern. This year the “Walk for Peace” focused on issues including the climate and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Up to 1,000 people, waving rainbow-coloured peace flags, gathered by the River Aare on Monday. They walked along the river, within sight of the Ukrainian embassy at Helvetiaplatz, into the city and ended in...

Switzerland’s finance industry: a little less important than a decade ago, but still a big plank of the economy. Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller The contribution of Switzerland’s finance industry to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) has decreased over the past ten years. The share of GDP accounted for by financial and insurance services was 9% last year, down from 10% in 2011, the State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF)External link said in a report...