Tag Archives: Business

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...

Is blockchain being used as a gimmick in achieving sustainable development goals? (Keystone / Un Photo/loey Felipe Handout) Our regular analysis of developments in the world of fintech and Crypto Nation. All eyes were on Libra at the Blockchain 4 Impact summit in Geneva last week. But the Facebook stablecoin project was only one part of a two-day event asking the question: Can blockchain help meet Sustainable Development Goalsexternal link? The question of blockchain...

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...

Credit Suisse chairman Urs Rohner announces the findings of the bank’s investigation into the surveillance affair. The usually discrete world of Swiss private banking has been shaken by spying revelations at Credit Suisse, the country’s second largest wealth manager. Chairman Urs Rohner has acknowledged that the sordid affair has damaged the reputation of the bank and the Swiss financial centre. Despite Rohner’s profuse apologies, and the bank pinning the blame...

(bloomberg) Credit Suisse Group Chief Operating Officer Pierre-Olivier Boueeexternal link has resigned following a spying scandal that has rocked Switzerland’s financial circles and which the lender said caused severe reputational damage to the bank. Bouee, a long-time associate of Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam, assumed responsibility for the surveillance of former Credit Suisse executive Iqbal Khan along with the bank’s head of security. The board of...

Lucerne: The yellow building is SUVA’s head office. Between 2021 and 2027, the Swiss National Accident Insurance Fund (SUVA)external link plans to cut about 20% of its jobs in the claims management department. Currently, that department has more than 800 jobs, including agency clerks, district physicians, insurance physicians at the head office and lawyers for objections and court cases. The cuts would affect workers who handle administrative processes that can be...