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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...

Other governments are keenly interested in following China’s lead. I’ve been pondering the excellent 1964 history of the Southern Song Dynasty’s capital of Hangzhou, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276 by Jacques Gernet, in light of the Chinese government’s unprecedented “Social Credit Score” system, which I addressed in Kafka’s Nightmare Emerges: China’s “Social Credit Score”. The scope of...

The minor concessions continued in the revised plan presented to the European Commission are unlikely to dissuade Brussels from launching sanctions. In a letter to the European Commission on 13 November, the Italian government confirmed that it would aim for a budget deficit at 2.4% of GDP in 2019 and reasserted its real growth forecast of 1.5% for next year. Rome made only minor concessions to Brussels’ demand that it...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.39% at 1.141 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, November 14(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Investors are on pins and needles today. Oil prices are trying to stabilize after WTI’s outsized 7% fall yesterday, its largest in three years. Global equities are heavier, dragged down by energy, but also larger than expected Q3...

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...

As a long-term dollar bull, I was happy to accept Bloomberg TV’s invite to come to the set on the day that the Dollar Index made new highs for the year and the euro punched through the $1.1300 support that has held since mid-August. Bloomberg TV The slightly less than two-minute video clip is a part of the discussion the euro’s drivers. While I tend to emphasize the macro forces at play, my day-to-date responsibilities...

It’s one of those “nothing to see here” moments for Economists trying not to appreciate what’s really going on in China therefore the global economy. The slump in China’s automotive sector dragged on through October, with year-over-year sales down for the fourth straight month.Auto sales last month were off 12% from a year earlier to 2.38 million, the government-backed China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said...

So this happened: Republic Metals, a gold refiner, filed bankruptcy on November 2. The company had found a discrepancy in its inventory of around $90 million, while preparing its financial statements. We are not going to point the Finger of Blame at Republic or its management, as we do not know if this was honest error or theft. If it was theft, then we would not expect it to be a simple matter of employees or...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.28% at 1.137 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, November 13(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The US dollar has a heavier bias against most of the major and emerging markets currencies, but the pullback is shallow, and the greenback’s underlying strength is still evident. Asian equities were mixed. Concern that Apple may be...

The Producer Price Index (PPI) or officially named “Producer and Import Price Index” describes the changes in prices for producers and importers. For us it is interesting because it is used in the formula for the Real Effective Exchange Rate. When producers and importers profit on lower price changes when compared to other countries, then the Swiss Franc reduces its overvaluation. The Swiss PPI values of -6% in 2015...