ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Philipp Hildebrand, chairman of the Swiss National Bank, met with the press at 16:00, following heavy media coverage and questions raised over the profits made from currency deals by Hildebrand or his wife in late 2011.
Hildebrand, who appeared tired but in form, first provided a lengthy summary of the incidents that led up to accusations that he may have acted illegally by allowing his family to make a profit on currency transactions. He then fielded questions in fluent German and French. He said that if he knew back in August what he knows today he would have acted differently, canceling his wife’s currency transactions and seeking the advice of the central bank’s governing board.
He was initially unaware of his wife’s purchase of several thousand dollars because “she has a strong personality” and she is personally interested in finance, he said. She owns a group of art galleries and she worked as a hedge fund trader for 15 years before turning to the art world. Plus, he added to chuckles, she reads the Financial Times every day.
He noted that he has come forward to talk about the business only now because it is only in the past two days that he has had the complete picture of what went on: the IT employee at Bank Sarasin could make a screen shot of transactions done by cell phone, but bank employees cannot make a printout, and the screen shot information was incomplete. What he saw apparently led him to believe that Hildebrand was taking advantage of his position to make currency deals. Hildebrand expressed some sympathy for the employee, but added that the man had made the mistake of turning to the wrong person with the information he held.
The Bank Council’s internal committee that reviewed the transactions and the independent investigation team from PricewaterhouseCooper’s had access to complete bank files for the Hildebrand family for the year 2011 and they found no evidence the chairman had broken the law.
Hildebrand said he knew who had received the information from the IT man, as well as who gave it to Weltwoche news magazine, but he preferred not to give names. He was on stage with the president of the Bank Council, which oversees the SNB, Hansueli Raggenbass, who didn’t hesitate to provide the name: lawyer Hermann Lei from Thurgau, who then gave the information to UDC People’s Party strategist and former leader Christophe Blocher.
The chairman of the bank says he regrets today that he did not take action in August, and he believes more stringest regulations are needed, and more transparency. For a start he would like to see all transactions over CHF20,000 by board members and their families approved in advance.
(Ed. note: GenevaLunch covered the press conference as it unfolded, on Facebook and Twitter.)
TSR reports that a Zurich judge officially opened an investigation into the matter of the IT employee who admitted to police he turned over to a lawyer private banking data on the Hildebrand family. The judge is not, however, investigating possible wrongdoing by Hildebrand.
NZZ noted before the press conference that the case leaves many questions open, in addition to whether or not the central banker has done wrong, notably, who is trying to undermine the Swiss central bank and why.
Philipp Hildebrand, chairman, Swiss National Bank
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A computer system employee of Bank Sarasin turned himself into police 1 January, it was revealed late Tuesday, after sharing documents linked to currency transactions made by the family of Philipp Hildebrand, chairman of the Swiss National Bank.
Swiss data protection and privacy laws make it illegal to share such information.
The documents were given to an attorney who is close to the UDC, Switzerland’s right-wing People’s Party. The employee, who was promptly fired by the bank says the lawyer made an appointment to meet Christoph Blocher 11 November. Blocher is a former leader of the UDC who was a member of the Swiss government until 2007.
Swiss media have been speculating about the role of Blocher in the leak to media that Hildebrand’s wife, a former currency trader who owns a gallery in Zurich, had made more than CHF60,000 in profit buying and selling one million dollars around the time that her husband was capping the Swiss franc. She spoke about the transaction for the first time on television Tuesday, saying that as a former currency trader she saw the “ridiculously” low level of the euro as an opportunity and that the day after she purchased dollars she informed the Swiss National Bank of the transaction, made in her own name, to ensure transparency.
TSR reports that not only did the Bank Council, the governing body that oversees Swiss National Bank activity, investigate and clear Hildebrand of suspicion of illegally benefiting personally from his position, but it asked PriceWaterhouseCoopers to carry out an independent investigation, which also cleared Hildebrand.
Christoph Blocher told Swiss German television Tuesday evening that he intends to remain silent for now.
Background story, GenevaLunch 3 January
Bank Sarasin’s public statement in full
Switzerland's tallest building, the 36-sstorey Prime Tower in Zurich, December 2011
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Zurich’s Prime Tower opened officially 6 December in the increasingly trendy West Zurich area, and the skyline of the city is now officially 126 metres tall, where buildings are concerned.
The new tower is Switzerland’s highest habitable building, although it is due to be overtaken in 2015 by Basel’s new Roche tower, under construction, that will be 175m.
The Prime Tower at Maagplatz 3 has been completely rented to what the owners, Swiss Prime Site AG, call tenants from “mainly the upscale services sector”: 36 percent are financial firms, 44 percent legal and other services, 6 percent executive search companies. Chemicals and technology firms are 5 percent of the tenants and gastronomy and retail are 7 percent.
Clouds, a restaurant, bistro bar and lounge on the top floor, opens to the public 12 December.
The 36-storey, 40,000m2 tower has room for 2,000 workers (3,500 with all four buildings on the site), 250 parking places and a restaurant/bar at the top, with a conference center on the second to the top floor.
Owners Swiss Prime Site invested CHF380 million for the site, which houses four buildings by Zurich architects Gigon/Guyer Architekten. It expects to have annual rent income of CHF29 million.
The Zurich West area, an old industrial zone that is being renovated, is expected to see the number of workers grow from 20,000 today to 30,000 by 2015, and the number of residents climb from 3,000 to 7,000, according to Swiss Prime Site.
The Hardbrücke railway station, which serves the area, is slated for renovation and expansion.
Vienna comes out number one, Paris is 30 and London 38, Geneva sixth safest
Bern's new bear park on the riverfront; Bern is the world's second safest city in 2011
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Mercer’s list of top cities in the world in terms of quality of living shows three Swiss cities in the top 10 in 2011 and three German cities, but Austria’s Vienna remains in the number one slot.
Zurich is second, Geneva and Bern are eighth and ninth respectively, with Munich and Dusseldorft fourth and fifth and Frankfurt in seventh place.
Completing the top 10: Auckland, New Zealand is third, Vancouver, Canada ties with Dusseldorf for fifth and Copenhagen, Denmark ties with Bern for ninth place.
Personal safety puts Bern and Zurich in world’s top five
The theme of this year’s Mercer report is personal safety as a result of upheavals in many parts of the world and growing concern on the part of companies and organizations about the safety of their employees. “The information and data obtained through the Quality of Living Reports (the “Reports”) are for information purposes only and are intended for use by multi-national organizations and government agencies. They are not designed or intended to use as the basis for foreign investment or tourism,” London-based Mercer notes in publishing its rankings.
Geneva’s media reports of a less safe city at odds with sixth-safest city in the world rank
Tourists snapping iPhone shots of the jet d'eau in Geneva, sixth safest city in the world
The Mercer survey ranks Geneva sixth in terms of personal safety worldwide, a number that will reassure Geneva’s authorities, who were in a for a barrage of media fire earlier in the year for a perceived decline in safety.
Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, whose home is in Geneva and whose political career as a Socialist Party member was built in the city, said Monday that a joint federal-cantonal commission she pushed for earlier in the year is reviewing safety in the city.
It is currently taking an inventory of the situation, she said, without giving a date for the commission to provide its report.
But the federal government, which contributes CHF50 million directly to support “international Geneva”, is “concerned” about reports that the city is less safe than it used to be, she told journalists at a press conference.
Calmy-Rey is retiring from the federal government this week, but she said Monday she expects to remain active in politics.
Ferdinand Hodler, "Genfersee von Chexbres aus" (Lake Geneva from Chexbres), 1904, sold by Sotheby's in Zurich 28 November for CHF7.14 million
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The art market is alive and thriving, Sotheby’s Swiss art sales Monday evening 28 November in Zurich made clear.
A 1904 painting of Lake Geneva from Chexbres by Ferdinand Hodler fetched CHF7.14 million, well above its pre-sale estimate of CHF3-5m. It was sold by telephone to a private collector.
The painting’s price is not a record for a Hodler work, but a record was set for a painting by Alfred Anker, with “Strickendes Mädchen, Kleinkind in der Wiege hütend”, which sold for CHF6.13 million. The 1885 oil portrait shows a girl, knitting and watching a toddler in a cradle. It reflects childhood, a theme that recurs often in Anker’s portraits.
Hodler’s priciest painting to date is a view of Lake Geneva from the fields above Saint Prex, sold in 2007 for CHF10.9m.
The Zurich auction Monday brought together an unusually large group of representative 19th and 20th century paintings by several of Switzerland’s most popular artists. Total sales were CHF17.41 for lots that together were estimated at CHF11m before the sale.
Sotheby’s notes that the Hodler painting from a private collection, on the market for the first time since 1963, is a close cousin to one in Geneva.
“The view of Lake Geneva from Chexbres inspired many landscapes by Hodler (1853-1918) between 1895 and 1911. The artist, however, painted only two landscapes from the vantage point featured in this iconic work. Dating from circa May 1904, this oil on canvas was probably executed shortly before a very similar canvas which is now part of the collection of the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva. It reflects the stylistic direction taken by Hodler in the early 1900s. In 1904, the artist took part in the Vienna Secession and the influence of the Jugenstil movement is clearly mirrored in the ornamentation, curves and lines of the painting. Testament to Hodler’s style are also the composition’s parallel design, the depiction of forms as large spreads of colour and the dominance of the colour blue, symbol of transcendence for the artist.”
Strong sales for panoply of Swiss artists’ works shows growing interest
Other artworks of note that were sold Monday:
Room to grow: Zurich's citizen say it can go ahead with new runways and keep existing flight paths
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss voters were back at the ballot box Sunday 27 November, a month after parliamentary elections, to vote on a number of items that differed from one canton to the next.
Here are some of the highlights, as results flow in Sunday evening:
Swiss right loses most runoffs, Geneva rebuffs minimum wage
- The right-wing UDC lost heavily in cantonal runoffs for seats in the upper house of parliament
- Two key federal parliament upper house seats: in the closely watched key Zurich election Felix Gutzwiller and Verena Diener defeated Christoph Blocher; Blocher is a former federal councilor and led the UDC/SVP People’s Party to a dominant position in the last decade until he lost his seat in 2007, and in St Gallen UDC candidate and favourite to win, Tony Brunner, lost to Socialist Paul Rechsteiner
- Canton Geneva has voted against a minimum wage but Neuchatel has voted to include it in the canton’s constitution; Switzerland as a whole does not have a minimum wage
- Canton Vaud: Green Party’s Béatrice Métraux defeated UDC’s Pierre-Yves Rapaz for the cantonal upper house seat left vacant by the death of UDC councilor Jean-Claude Mermoud in September
In German-speaking ares: Zurich airport can grow, Zug taxes down and foreigners get mixed bag:
- Foreigners: they will not be given the right to vote at the communal level in Lucerne, but they were spared stiff requirements pushed by the UDC People’s Party in the city of Basel to require strong language skills in order to be naturalized, and Basel’s citizens also voted 3-1 to place the responsibility for naturalization in the hands of the local government rather than the parliament; in Schwyz, voters agreed, 2-1, to align its naturalization laws with federal law and put responsibility for this in the hands of communal commissions (TSR notes that this was necessary after a scandal in Emmen, Lucerne, where the communal council routinely turned down applications from foreigners from certain countries
- Zurich voted strongly against a motion that would have restricted the airport’s growth; it will now be able to add two new runways to and allow existing ones to be extended; the vote was a sharp rebuke to the officials from several communes who were behind a motion to limit flying over highly populated neighbourhoods and to restrict the airport’s growth
- Zug voted in a number of tax breaks, including doubling the reduction per child for families, from CHF9,000 to 18,000, and cutting the corporate tax rate to 5.75 percent from 6.5
- Lump-sum taxes for wealthy foreigners who reside in Switzerland will continue to be offered by cantons Glaris and St Gallen but the latter’s voters have chosen to tighten requirements.
- Smoking in Basel: voters rejected a proposal by restaurants to adopt less strict federal no smoking laws instead of the cantons, in a close vote with just 200 out of more than 23,000 deciding the issue.
Swiss soldiers travel on Swiss trains for free when on duty (photo: Morges station, November 2011)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The 2012 train schedule that goes into effect 11 December will offer travellers better connections for trips abroad. Some parts of the Lake Geneva region will also see improvements. But the best news for many working travellers is that mobile connections are being improved, as is the online sales service.
The CFF rail company presented highlights of the new schedule to the press Thursday 17 November.
You’ll be able to plug in and connect better in 2012
All the new trains will have electric plugs and existing intercity trains will also get them. “All the new Duplex trains on the intercity trains will be equipped with WLAN,” says Jeannine Pilloud.
A major improvement could be the installation of equipment that amplifies signals received inside and outside the train cars, giving better access to the cell phone and Internet network.
1.8 million cell phone tickets ordered and number growing
The CFF app for ordering online tickets via cell phone is proving popular, with 1.8 million users since it was introduced in 2010, and the number is growing steadily, says the rail company.
Users of the small pocket timetables will find that some of the international ones are disappearing, in favour of online information, and that smaller stations’ stops are no longer listed, but are incorporated into regional listings. All details will be available online, however.
French-speaking Switzerland, especially commuters, to see significant improvements
A host of changes for trains in the Lake Geneva region will have a significant impact:
More double-decker trains will be used on the Geneva airport/Lucerne line, offering more seats
An additional InterRegio train will run between Neuchatel and Lausanne at 07:53 and the Neuchatel/La Chaux-de-Fonds/Le Locle line will have additional service during rush hour and a pair of trains is being added to the Neuchatel to Bienne line
Canton Vaud: the S4 line is being extended from Morges to Allaman, stopping in Saint Prex and Etoy, which will now have trains every 30 minutes instead of once an hour, Monday to Friday.
Geneva: La Plaine/Geneva, more trains will run during rush hour. Coppet–Geneva–Lancy-Pont-Rouge trains, the 30-minute schedule is being extended for weekend night and trains will run every half hour on Fridays and Saturdays until the end of the day.
New international connections, travel time cut on major links
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Rudolf Elmer, ex-Bank Julius Baer manager who brought charges against his former employer for meancing him, dropped them Thursday 17 November when he appeared in court to appeal his earlier sentencing on a number of charges. A Zurich court ruled against his appeal but this was later overturned by the Swiss federal high court.
ATS Swiss news agency says he would not say if he was offered money by his ex-employer to drop the charges, and that he continued to say the bank had menaced him.
He was given a suspended sentence in January 2011 for threats and theft related to banking data he stole several years ago. He appealed the fines and suspended sentence he was given, and the Swiss federal court ordered the Zurich court to accept his appeal. Today, in court, AST reports, he became bogged down in contradictory statements about emails and faxes related to the theft.
Shortly after being released in January he was re-arrested on charges of breaking Switzerland’s bank secrecy laws, related to sharing data with WikiLeaks. The arrest followed an appearance in public with Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, to talk about sharing the documents.
Elmer still faces these charges.
Some serviced is back, but expect delays, disruptions for the morning
Lausanne-Geneva trains, including Brig-Geneva airport line, not running Tuesday morning
Update 09:15 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Trains are back on the track and running btween Lausanne and Geneva, after a 70-minute stop during rush hour on one of Switzerland’s most heavily travelled routes, says the CFF rail company. A signal box breakdown in Coppet was responsible for stopping the trains from 07:30 to 08:40. Repair work will continue until noon, but travellers should expect disruptions and delays for the morning, says the CFF.
Regional and RER trains were not affected, between Geneva and Coppet, and between Lausanne and Allaman, but the breakdown left the Intercity trains unable to make the Lausanne-Geneva connection.
The CFF announced the problem via loudspeakers on the quais and put a team of helpers out to guide people.
Updates in English from the CFF.
Here are details from the CFF, provided at 08:21:
Between Coppet and Gland on the Genève-Aéroport – Lausanne line, no train services are operating.
The Lancy-Pont-Rouge – Genève – Coppet S-Bahn trains are running on schedule.
Trains RE Genève – Lasanne are cancelled between Coppet and Gland.
Trains IR Genève-Aéroport – Lausanne – Brig are cancelled between Genève-Aéroport and Lausanne.
Trains IR Genève-Aéroport – Lausanne – Bern – Luzern are cancelled between Genève-Aéroport and Lausanne.
Trains ICN Genève-Aéroport – Morges – Biel/Bienne – Basel SBB / Zürich HB – St. Gallen are cancelled between Genève-Aéroport and Morges.
Intercity trains Genève-Aéroport – Lausanne – Bern – Zürich HB – St. Gallen are cancelled between Genève-Aéroport and Lausanne.
Passengers travelling from Coppet to Nyon or vice versa travel via BUS TPN11.
Reason: Signal box malfunction
Duration of disruption indefinite.
Sergio Ermotti, new UBS Group chief executive
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – UBS will have a new boss: Sergio Ermotti, 51, who has been the ad interim chief executive of Switzerland’s largest bank since 24 September, has been named to the post permanently, the bank announced Tuesday morning 15 November.
He replaced Oswald Gruebel, called in to turn the bank around in February 2009, who resigned in September following the discovery of the CHF2 billion loss at the hands of a rogue trader in London.
Kaspar Villiger, chairman of the board, has moved his retirement date up to 3 May 2012, at the bank’s next general assembly. Axel Weber, who was slated to be proposed as vice-chairman and to eventually step into the chairman’s role, is now being proposed to the assembly as chairman.
The bank’s board also confirmed its strategy, it announced, and details of this will be provided at a 17 November financial meeting.
Credit Suisse, which has been told by the Swiss government to hand over data on a number of American account holders suspected of fraud or major tax evasion in the US, received bad news from Moody’s, which has scheduled its credit rating for review, saying the bank’s recent profitability trends and restructuring process should be looked at:
Update Sunday 30 October 22:30 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Travellers’ alert: a court has ordered Qantas to resume flights and workers to go back to work after thousands were stranded by a strike Saturday. The Australian airline says it will resume flights Monday afternoon 31 October, Australian time.
Saturday 29 October grounded all flights worldwide, effective immediately, as it locked out three of its labour unions, including pilots and baggage handlers. The company is asking passengers not to go to the airport until further notice, but says it will refund ticket holders who want to cancel their flights.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The large multi-party centre is gaining ground in Switzerland, to the detriment of the main parties, early results from Sunday’s election for members of parliament seem to show.
Four of the governing parties, the right-wing UDC People’s Party and the centre-right PLR (Liberaux Radicaux), as well as the Christian Democrats (centre) and leftist Greens appear to be losing ground to two of the country’s new parties, the right and centre right environmental groups Vert Lib and PBD.
Swiss public broadcasting (SSR) stations, which track the parliamentary elections closely, provided their first projections at 19:00. Swiss polls closed earlier in the day and official results are generally released after midnight. Unofficial results are in for 23 of the 26 cantons, with intermediate results for Geneva, Vaud, and Zurich at 20:30. Only slightly more than half of the seats for the upper house were known.
Geneva‘s intermediate results show only a minor shift, with the Greens and Socialists each losing a seat in the lower house, but with centre left and environmentalists gaining the seats. Upper house: Liliane Maury Pasquier, Socialist, and Robert Cramer, Greens.
Vaud: Socialists and Greens have gained a seat each at the expense of the Vert’libs and the UDC, in the lower house.
Zurich: Vert’libs and centre-right PDC each gained a seat, with the UDC and centre-right PBD losing one each. Upper house: Verena Diener, Vert’lib and Felix Gutzwiller, PLR – with former UDC leader and federal councillor Christoph Blocher in third place for the two seats.
The map of voting, canton by canton, and all results are on TSR in French.
Zurich Zoo temporarily welcomes 1,000 unplanned insect guests
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Zurich had its own headline animal news Wednesday 19 October, but it was not alone. The city’s airport was the scene of a discovery by Swiss customs officials of 261 illegally imported tarantulas, a haul that led officials to the apartment of the owner, where another 900 illegally held insects were housed. The Mexican redknee tarantulas and meat-eating centipedes have been taken to Zurich Zoo to be cared for.
USA, farm’s exotic animals let go
The news came in the wake of a major breakout in Zanesville, Ohio, Wednesday, that resulted in 49 animals being killed after they escaped, with another six reportedly taken to a zoo, according to CNN. One animal was missing late Wednesday, but authorities believe it may have been eaten.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A 27-year-old woman who in 2006 shook a child to death, has been given a 10-year-prison sentence. She is the third person involved in a child abuse case that involved her partner and his other female companion and three of the man’s children. They were all living together as a group with religious convictions, with the man dictating severe punishments that eventually led to the incident where one of the children died.
The man and his other partner were earlier sentenced to 9.5 and 7 years for their part in the string of abuses.
TSR notes that a Swiss study showed in 2008 that there had been eight deaths and 50 hospitalizations in five years for shaking babies and young children, with the public not fully aware of the damage that can be caused to a young child by shaking it.
Delighted Swiss mobile phone user
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Swisscom will cut roaming rates for mobile phones by 5 centimes a minute each year until 2014, starting 1 October.
The company announced the new rates Tuesday 20 September, saying the 25 percent reduction in roaming charges will kick in this year for subscribers, but only in 2012 for prepaid cards.
Swisscom currently charges CHF.085 a minute. The second 5 centime cut will take place in July 2012.
Zurich, one of three Swiss cities that will benefit from new jobs
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The QS World University Rankings 2011-2012, published independently since 2010 and considered one of the main global education ranking systems, show EPFL in Lausanne slipping from slot no. 32 to 35, but ETHZ in Zurich holding its no. 18 place, just behind McGill in Canada and ahead of Duke in the US.
EPFL has gone up slightly with Leiden and remained at the same level with the Shanghai rankings in recent years, while since ETHZ has held steady with QS and Shanghai but gone up with Leiden. EPFL offers 20 programmes and ETHZ 44.
Swiss state universities that are given a world ranking: The University of Geneva is ranked 71, Basel University 137, Bern 162, Zurich 101.
The QS system was originally published jointly by universities by Quacquarelli Symonds, a UK-based company, jointly with Times Higher Education (THE), but the two split in 2010 to use different methodologies for determining rankings. The new QS system should not be confused with the older THE-QS World University Rankings.
THE publishes its new rankings in October.
Other major rankings systems, most of which show some national bias: Shanghai Jiao Tong, The CHE Ranking, The Leiden Ranking, CHE EUSID, Newsweek, several Financial Times specialty rankings, and the Karriere Hochschulranking.
The Swiss education department publishes a useful web site in four languages (including English) with a searchable data base of all the rankings for comparative purposes.
Highlights of the new QS rankings include:
- Cambridge is number 1 but close behind are Harvard, MIT, Yale and Oxford for the top five
- The top 10 are all US or UK universities
- Chinese mainland universities are inching up, with two of them, Peking and Tsinghua, in the top 50
Odier praises recent agreements with UK, Germany and says US must respect existing Swiss law
Patrick Odier, left and Brady Dougan, head of Credit Suisse, in 2009
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Patrick Odier, president of the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA), says that a new Swiss treaty with the US, similar to the one negotiated for the transfer of banking data from UBS to the US but covering additional banks, would not be likely to be approved by parliament.
“The cross-border problems with the United States can and will be solved. But the United States must understand that Swiss laws must be respected,” Odier said at a news conference.
Odier’s remarks were made at a news conference in Zurich Monday morning 5 September in a run-up to the annual Swiss Bankers Day Tuesday 6 September.
He also emphasized that the new tax agreements negotiated with Germany and the UK point the way forward in resolving Switzerland’s tax and banking disputes with other countries, but also what the banking industry sees as its bigger challenge: they represent a milestone in implementing the 2015 Financial Centre Strategy set out by the association, one of the goals of which is acquiring and managing taxed assets.
“Bank client secrecy protects wealth and does not hide it. This protection remains important,” Odier insisted to journalists.
Swiss banks in 2010 had earnings of CHF61.5 billion, which the SBA attributes to a growing economy and low interest rates. Earnings were up by 13.4 per cent. Total assets rose by 1.7 per cent to a total of CHF2,714.5 billion. The total volume for mortgages and bank loans last year was CHF 898 billion. The majority of lending continued to go to private households, SBA figures show.
The organization is at odds with the federal government over keeping mortgage lending risks under control.
“The current upward price trend on the real estate market, with scattered hot spots, is due to low interest rates and rising demand. The banks are working with FINMA to find a solution that would strengthen certain aspects of the existing self-regulation for lending. The SBA was therefore surprised by the announcement made by the Swiss Federal Council to strengthen the capital adequacy requirements for the mortgage business. The SBA remains sceptical about the effectiveness of any quantitative regulations. In particular, even in the area of exceptions-to-policy, the SBA would expect to see risk-based capital adequacy requirements.”
The SBA says it is supports Swiss government efforts to seek “a sustainable solution to the open issues regarding the cross-border business with the United States. A solution must be applicable worldwide, definitive and correspond to existing Swiss law”, the group says in a statement issued Monday morning.
Reuters reports that “a long tradition of bank secrecy has helped Switzerland build up a $2 trillion offshore financial industry, but the country has agreed in recent years to do more to help hunt tax cheats amid a global crackdown on tax havens. The government is keen to find a solution that would avoid needing the approval of parliament which only reluctantly agreed to the UBS treaty under emergency law last year.”
Italian dies on Matterhorn late Sunday afternoon
Update 11:50 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The past four days have taken a high toll in deaths and injuries in Switzerland: a well-known wine writer was murdered by her former companion who then committed suicide early Friday, three mountain climbers lost their lives in falls and four youths on a joyride are in serious condition after the car they stole rolled several times.
Murder victim and ex known in food and wine circles
Barbara Dittus-Meier, 47, former editor of Vinum, the European wine magazine, and a widely respected wine authority in Switzerland, was shot at her home shortly after midnight Friday in Baden, not far from Zurich, by her ex-companion, Rui A, a Portuguese chef and owner of the Pergola restaurant in Bad Zurzach, 43. He then turned the gun on himself. Neighbours alerted the police after hearing several shots. The three daughters of Dituss-Meier, ages 14 to 20, were asleep at the time of the deaths, but were awakened by the shots and they discovered the bodies. (more on editor Ellen Wallace’s wine blog, Among the Vines).
Argovian police had previously received calls for domestic violence; the couple had been together for several years but had recently split up.
Youths steal car, lose control and flip it
Fourth local youths stole a car in Stalenried in canton Valais in the early hours of Sunday 21 August, around 02:00, and headed on the cantonal road for Gspon when the driver lost control of the car on a bend.
It rolled over several times, 150 metres down a sloping pasture, before coming to a stop. All four were taken to hospital with serious injuries: two were flown to the Hopital de l’Ile in Bern and two others were taken by ambulance to Visp.
They are 18, 16, 14 and 13 years old.
Fire destroys new barn at its inauguration
A new building described by canton Vaud police as an “ultra-modern” barn that was to house 160 animals starting next week in Grens, Vaud, caught fire and was destroyed Saturday afternoon at 15:00 during its inauguration.
Several dozen people and about 15 animals were there to celebrate the completion of the barn when it caught fire, for reasons that are not yet known. The building housed more than 800 large rolls of hay and straw, and it went up in flames quickly. The animals were taken to safety and no one was injured. The 160 animals scheduled to winter there are currently up in the Copettes alpage near Givrins.
Separate accidents kill 3 in Swiss Alps
An Italian died on the east face of the Matterhorn at 17:30 Sunday and two climbers died in separate accidents 19 and 20 August, bringing to four the number of people who died in one week while walking or climbing in canton Valais.
Police say the Italian was one of a group of five climbing the Matterhorn/Cervin Sunday 21 August when he fell 500 metres to his death on the east face of the mountain, shortly before the Solvay hut, at 4,030 metres. The group was not roped together. Police are trying to formally identify the climber.
A 43-year-old German man who was climbing the Lagginhorn mountain on his own 19 August fell 50 metres to his death, at 3,600 metres. His family became worried when he hadn’t returned home by 20:30 and they called police. A helicopter search failed to find him during the night but found his body when the search was taken up again Saturday morning.
Two Austrian climbers headed up the south face of the Dent Blanche Saturday morning. As they started down, on the south peak at 4,000 metres, at 09:30, one of them, a 27-year-old man, fell 400 metres to his death, for reasons that are not clear.
A 15-year-old Mauritian tourist lost his life earlier in the week while hiking near Martigny-La Combe.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Zurich police say one woman was killed and a second is in critical condition with several bullet wounds after a man opened fire in front of the town hall in Pfäffikon, near Zurich, shortly before noon, reports news agency ATS. A man has been arrested but no further details are available.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The US Department of Justice (DOJ) 21 July extended an earlier indictment of four Credit Suisse former and present bankers to eight, for helping wealthy Americans evade US taxes. In a lengthy statement the DOJ notes that:
“Markus Walder, former head of North America Offshore Banking at an international bank headquartered in Zurich; Susanne D. Rueegg Meier, a former manager with the international bank; Andreas Bachmann, a former banker at a subsidiary of the international bank; and Josef Dörig, the founder of a Swiss trust company, have been charged with conspiring with other Swiss bankers to defraud the United States, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced today. The four are charged in a superseding indictment together with four other defendants (Marco Parenti Adami, Emanuel Agustino, Michele Bergantino and Roger Schaerer) who were charged in an indictment returned on Feb. 23, 2011.”
The DOJ’s “superseding indictment” claims that “As of the fall of 2008, the international bank maintained thousands of secret accounts for U.S. customers with as much as $3 billion in total assets under management in those accounts. The conspiracy dates back to 1953 and involved two generations of US tax evaders including US customers who inherited secret accounts at the international bank.”
The list of charges is lengthy and a report last weekend by Tages Anzeiger that negotiations had broken down between Switzerland and the US over the DOJ’s investigation into Credit Suisse affairs now appears to have credence.
The US statement ends with the tag line: “A criminal indictment is only an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.”
Walder is the former head of North America offshore banking at Credit Suisse Group, and Rueegg Meier and Bachmann are former senior managers at the bank while Dörig, who trained at the bank, is a former board member of Arbitrium Financial Services in Zurich in addition to having created his own trust company, Dorig Partner AG.
Swiss taxes varied considerably from one city to another in 2010
Swiss taxes take a bigger bite in Neuchatel than in Zug
Update 22 July (new files added at end) BERN, SWITZERLAND – That magic moment in the year is here, when Bern tells Swiss taxpayers where they were best off, living or dying, in 2010, so the rest of the holidays can be spent planning a move. There is Zug, for those who are rich and single, or if you are married and have two children and you’re living in Neuchatel, Zug but also Geneva will look very good.
Federal income tax is a small part of the three-tiered tax system, with cantonal taxes usually the largest and communal taxes varying the most widely. Zug retains its champion’s title of the cheapest place in Switzerland from a tax standpoint, while Neuchatel remains one of the most expensive, for individuals.
Sample comparisons culled from the 2010 figures, published 21 July by the Federal tax office:
Single, no children, cantonal, communal and parish (if Catholic) taxes, on income of CHF100,000
Add on CHF2,067 for federal income tax
Zurich: CHF11,637 / 9.64%
Zug: CHF6,148 / 5.08%
Bern: CHF14,982 / 14.98%
Basel: CHF16,472 / 16.47%
Lausanne: CHF16,162 /16.06%
Neuchatel: CHF18,639 / 18.64%
Geneva: CHF15’370 / 15.37%
If you make CHF200,000, tax rates range from Zug’s 9.72% to Neuchatel’s 23.71%.
Married, two children, cantonal, communal and parish (if Catholic) taxes, federal tax not included, on income of CHF100,00, one spouse working
Add on CHF907 for federal income tax
Zurich: CHF6,136 / 6.14%
Zug: CHF6,148 / 5.08%
Bern: CHF8,710 / 8.71%
Basel: CHF7,690 / 7.69%
Lausanne: CHF9,175 /9.18%
Neuchatel: CHF10,054 / 10.05%
Geneva: CHF3,202 / 3.20%
If you make CHF200,000, tax rates range from Zug’s 4.43% to Neuchatel’s 17.91%.
When both spouses work the tax rate tends to be 2-3 percentage points higher, except in Zug, where it is half the rate, and in Geneva, where it is double the rate.
Inheritance taxes: avoid Graubuenden
Swiss inheritance taxes are not collected by several cantons, but Graubuenden has the highest rate and Lausanne is the rare city to collect a communal tax in addition to the cantonal one. It’s better to be a son or daughter inheriting than to inherit from a brother or sister, and beware, nieces and nephews, you’ll have to pay more when your uncle’s lovely chalet passes into your hands.
Swiss tax burden, by canton (Ger/Fre), pdf
Swiss tax burden, comparison, communes, pdf
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A Zurich start-up, CloudBroker, and researchers from ETH Zurich’s Institute of Molecular Systems Biology have partnered with IBM in a break-through medical research project that shows the huge potential of computing clouds to do far more than make our daily digital lives easier. The cutting-edge research project promises to shed light on antimicrobial pathogens in an effort to more rapidly develop antibiotics to fight disease.
There is a growing urgency to find new antibiotic solutions. IBM, in its press release about the project, says that
“according to the World Health Organization, the number of antimicrobial resistant pathogens is increasing dramatically, threatening treatments to tuberculosis, malaria and other now common illnesses caused by various bacteria. The study of bacterial proteins has become increasingly important as understanding the complex elements of bacteria can play a vital role in determining risks and determining drugs that can fight resistant strands.”
The researchers were able, in just two weeks, to rapidly handle massive amounts of data to identify nearly 250 potential “virulence factors”: proteins of a harmful streptococcus bacterium and to then model nearly 2.3 million three-dimensional structures.
Zurich airport, an appealing sight after too long in the air for US Airways passengers!
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – US Airways flight 710 landed in Zurich shortly before 15:00 Thursday afternoon 23 June, six-and-a-half hours late, but the passengers weren’t sitting in an airport waiting to leave. The 197 passengers circled above Chester country, around the Philadelphia airport, for more than three hours Wednesday night, spending fuel.
Shortly after takeoff the crew noticed that the landing gear was stuck, reports the Phildelphia Inquirer. The flight, which originated in Los Angeles and was stopping over in Philadelphia, would not be able to fly that distance with the gear down because of the drag on the plane and subsequent fuel consumption. It also couldn’t land, until it spent enough of its fuel to reach landing weight.
The plane then landed safely and at 01:32 instead of 18:25 the passengers, on a new plane, flew off to Zurich.
Geneva, marked by much coming (growth) despite the going (exodus): companies, individuals
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Geneva comes out looking pretty but at a price, in the latest “location quality” comparison drawn up by bank Credit Suisse for Swiss cantons. The report issued 22 June says Geneva’s growing economic success is thanks in particular to the availability of high quality labour and its easy accessibility. Geneva’s growth rate from 1995-2008 was the strongest in French-speaking Switzerland.
Victim of its success leads to greater regional cooperation
The canton is nevertheless a victim of its own success, the report notes, with companies and individuals moving to neighboring canton Vaud and across the border to France. A growing regional cooperation is developing as a result, the report notes.
Geneva is one of the country’s smallest cantons, at 282 square kilometres but it is ranked fourth for dynamic economic performance by the bank after Zurich, Zug and Aargau, wth the last two benefitting from their proximity to Zurich.
Geneva’s strength comes from its mixed role as a home to international organizations and as Switzerland’s second international financial centre plus main centre for private wealth management, but it has also been growing rapidly as a trading centre for raw materials. It is gradually going through a transformation from cutting edge industries to cutting edge value-added business, which means that measuring by the value created per employee is one of the country’s highest.
Disposable income in Geneva is by far the lowest in Switzerland
The downside is that Geneva has the tax rates, corporate and personal, that are among Switzerland’s highest, with some of the most costly housing in the country. As a result, Geneva’s regional disposable income, or RDI, used to calculate the financial attractiveness of cantons for residence, is by far the lowest in Switzerland.
Credit Suisse points to the exodus towards France and neighbouring towns, notably Nyon, Rolle and Morges, as the direct result of these high costs, both for companies and individuals.
Geneva, Switzerland, where the price of chicken and wine haven't gone up, but the franc has, compared to the dollar and euro
GENEVA / ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A double whammy of bad news for people hoping Switzerland might be getting cheaper: ECA, a multi-company owned employees service provide and Numbeo, a searchable database on global living costs, both put Geneva, Basel and Zurich high on their lists for the world’s most expensive cities, in June reports.
The only consolation is that the growing number of cost of living indexes vary considerably and therefore provide only a guideline to what it really costs to live in a place, with smart consumers finding ways to cut costs. All are based on samples, with some, such as ECA, carrying out surveys.
High Swiss franc penalizes cost of living indexes, mostly in dollars
The pricey cities come as no surprise to anyone who has watched currency fluctuations in the past year because the Swiss franc has appreciated hugely against both the euro and the dollar. Cost of living indexes, and these two are examples, tend to use the dollar as their base currency, against which prices are measured. “Of the European locations surveyed cost of living has increased the most in Swiss locations,” notes ECA, which ranked Zurich sixth, Geneva 8th, Bern and Basel 10th and . “In Switzerland, where inflation is low, it is the strong Swiss franc that has contributed to pushing Zurich up to 6th position globally from 10th.”
If you haven’t left Zurich in the past year, in other words, you won’t have seen much change in your grocery bill, despite the city climbing up in world price indexes.
ECA has added a lengthy article about the impact of currency fluctuations on expats around the world, noting that although the dollar recovered slightly in May it has depreciated more than 10 percent against the euro, without mentioning that the figure is even worse against the Swiss franc. The author notes that food prices tend to have less of an impact on expats than on locals because they spend a lower percent of expendable income on it.
The detail behind cost of living
New reports shed some light on Geneva housing prices
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss National Bank 16 June joined the chorus of cautious voices warning of real estate markets overheating in some urban areas in Switzerland and the risks a sudden sharp economic downturn, not to be excluded despite current economic growth, could pose for banks as well as property owners. The central bank has begun a quarterly survey of Swiss banks’ risk levels.
“In response to signs of imbalances developing in the Swiss mortgage market and to the high uncertainty over the banks’ true risk exposure, the SNB has intensified its monitoring of the mortgage market. For this purpose, at the beginning of 2011, it launched a comprehensive quarterly survey of banks. The survey results will be a key tool for analyzing the vulnerability of the Swiss banking sector, and assessing
the need for further policy measures.”
The carefully crafted words of the SNB’s Financial Stability Report 2011, published 16 June, don’t paint a dramatic picture, but the report does raise flags, even as luxury property reports aimed at buyers outside Switzerland, such as one issued by the New York Times 16 June, paint a rosy picture that overlooks the larger
Cheaper housing: Geneva’s Swiss are buying in Annemasse
Neighbouring France is benefitting to some extent from the high franc and housing shortage situation. Le Temps reports today that 40 percent of the new relatively low-cost housing complexes being built in Annemasse, on the border, belong to Swiss people.
The managing director of a large retail store in the Nyon area told GenevaLunch Thursday that “retailers here are suffering. It’s not catastrophic but it’s not good. We read about how well the economy is doing, but we don’t see it. People are shopping over in France, understandably, with the low euro.”
Interest rates held at low 0.25%
Geneva's old town: a nice place to live, for those who can afford it
The good news for homeowners is the SNB’s decision on interest rates, which will be kept at 0.25 percent for three months, continuing the expansionist monetary policy of the past two-plus years. The central bank notes, however, that the current situation cannot continue for another three years, with low interest rates to fuel the money supply, coupled with a high Swiss franc, in the context of a very mixed economic growth picture in Europe. “Strong growth in the emerging markets and positive developments in Germany and Switzerland contrasted with economic weakness in several other European countries”, in 2010, the report warns.
Swiss market stable except for Geneva, Lausanne region
Swiss residential real estate prices show marked differences, with Wuerst and Partner‘s October 2010 quarterly report on the Swiss market showing 60 communes at risk for real estate bubbles, while the market overall remained “stable”.
The latest report from the company, issued in May 2011, says stability has continued, with one significant exception: “residential rents are expected to continue to remain generally stable. The one exception is the Lake Geneva region: This region is currently experiencing the strongest population growth throughout Switzerland, whilst at the same time residential construction activity has remained moderate in comparison with the rest of the country. Consequently, rents in this region are expected to trend further upwards in the foreseeable future.”
The housing supply rate stabilized in the first quarter of 2011, Wuerst figures show, but the asking price for all residential property in Lausanne and Geneva continued to climb, the only area in Switzerland where this was the case.
Sales prices in Lake Geneva area rose 10% and more: CHF2.26m on average in Geneva
Lausanne train station: more to look at, with new animated large ad screens coming Monday
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Travellers will find the relatively ads-free train stations in six main Swiss cities visually busier Monday 20 June when large-screen ad boards go up.
The 1.01 x 1.80 metre screens will show silent animated high-definition advertisements, similar to screens already operating in airports.
Geneva, Lausanne, Bern, Basel, Lucerne and Zurich will have a total of 43 boards. The CFF says that 840,000 people pass through the six RailAway stations every day.
Ad sales will be handled by e-advertising, which belongs to SGA (APG in German), Switzerland’s largest “out of home” media advertising company.
The company has a new product that was developed with Coca-Cola and Volkswagen, an interactive billboard, on display at Zurich’s main station until the end of June: the display reacts to the movements of passersby.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A new world record in energy conversion efficiency with flexible solar cells has been set, nearing that of glass, by a team at Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology. The team has demonstrated a conversion efficiency of 13.8, up from their previous record of 12.6 percent, it announced 9 June.
The material used is DuPon’s Kapton colourless polyimide film, “a new material currently in development for use as a flexible superstrate for cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin film photovoltaic (PV) modules”, Empa says.
Kapton, a trademark name, is a film that is over 100 times thinner and 200 times lighter than the glass typically used for photovoltaics. “There are inherent advantages in transitioning to flexible, film-based versus rigid glass CdTe systems” the laboratory’s statement about the new record points out. Transport and installation costs can be reduced significantly, bringing down the cost of solar energy.
The same team, under the direction of Ayodhya Tiwari, the head of the laboratory, also very recently set a new world record in energy efficiency (of 18.7 percent) for another type of flexible solar cells based on copper indium gallium (di)selenide (also known as CIGS).
Details in Empa’s press release
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Tenzin Yangki, 19 and a student in Zurich, was crowned “Miss Tibet” in Dharamshala, India, home to the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan government in exile. The Times of India reports that her reply to the judges’ question of how she would “contribute to the cause of Tibet” [ed. note: no clarification if this means exiled Tibetans or if it includes those in China] she replied “Tibetan women are educated and beautiful but role models are needed to ensure their effective participation in Tibet cause and Miss Tibet can be the role model to spread awareness.”
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Zurich’s legislators have decided to better organize the city’s legal prostitution system by tidying up where and how it can be done. One city lawmaker told Tages-Anzeiger that the new measures are not so much anti-prostitution as anti-human trafficking. Many of the prostitutes are not well-informed about their rights, according to the city, and a licensing system will help build lines of direct communication to keep them better informed.
The change that has drawn the most publicity is the creation of what are called “sex boxes” in the Altstatten neighbourhood, while prostitution will be banned in the city centre Sihlquai and Langstrasse neighbourhoods. It will be allowed in the hot night spots area of Niederdorf and Allmend Brunau, where prostitutes will be able to solicit clients in cars.
Prostitution has been legal in Switzerland since 1992, but street-walking is limited to small areas.
Zurich introduced a ban on “street windows” in 2003 in an effort to keep prostitutes from using windows to sell their goods and thus get around the street-walking limits. The number of prostitutes has grown, the city council reports, without giving a number, but there were reportedly 3,000 in 2003, swissinfo reported at the time.
