A Swiss medical publisher has ceased operations, including shuttering nationally prominent journals, after its parent organization, the Swiss Medical Association FMH, allegedly forced it into bankruptcy, RetractionWatch.com reported. According to information on the website of EMH Swiss Medical Publishers, the Swiss Medical Association FMH holds a 55% stake in the firm. But on Aug.
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Switzerland
Switzerland's federal criminal court on Wednesday convicted two top managers of a Saudi oil company on charges including fraud and money laundering in a vast scam that swiped at least $1.8 billion from a Malaysian state-owned investment fund, the Associated Press reported. PetroSaudi executive Tarek Obaid, a Saudi-Swiss dual national, received a seven-year sentence and British-Swiss associate Patrick Mahony was handed a six-year sentence from the Federal Criminal Court in southern Bellinzona, officials said.
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UBS on Tuesday agreed to sell Credit Suisse's U.S. mortgage servicing business, UBS Chief Financial Officer Todd Tuckner said on Wednesday, without naming the buyer, Reuters reported. Tuckner, who was speaking on a call with analysts following publication of the bank's latest results, said the transaction was expected to close in the first quarter of next year. UBS executives declined to name the buyer on a media call later, though CEO Sergio Ermotti said it was a consortium. "That's the only thing we can say, and it's up to them to communicate," he added.
Switzerland's financial supervisor has been scrutinising how UBS vets risky wealthy clients that it wants to transfer from Credit Suisse, sources said, as the regulator takes a hands-on approach to the bank's integration of its fallen rival, Reuters.
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About a year-and-a-half after the collapse of crypto-friendly banks in the US, European players are pushing to reinvigorate the market for around-the-clock payments in the digital-asset sector, Bloomberg News reported. A pair of Swiss lenders — AMINA Bank AG and Sygnum Bank AG — have debuted real-time payment and settlement networks in recent weeks. They are targeting a gap in the market left by the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) and Signature Bank’s Signet platform which, prior to their collapse in March 2023, played a crucial role in bringing liquidity to the crypto market.
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Swiss inflation unexpectedly eased — offering reassurance to Swiss National Bank officials who’ve lowered borrowing costs for two straight meetings, Bloomberg reported. Consumer prices rose 1.3% from a year ago in June, the statistics office said Thursday. That’s less than economists estimated and down from May’s 1.4%, which was the fastest clip this year. The slowdown was helped by a 0.2% annual decline in the cost of goods, while services were up 2.4%. Core inflation also moderated to 1.1%, defying expectations for it to quicken.
As Credit Suisse spiraled toward insolvency early last year, a group of Swiss bankers, technocrats and regional officials were already busy laying the groundwork for a new type of financial infrastructure, Bloomberg News reported. Nine months after the Swiss bank was rescued by crosstown rival UBS Group AG in March 2023, the Zurich and Basel cantons issued the first so-called tokenized bonds settled in Switzerland’s experimental digital currency. The Lugano city government followed suit shortly after.
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The Swiss National Bank lowered borrowing costs at a second straight meeting, keeping it at the forefront of global interest-rate cuts as it battles low inflation and a strengthening franc, Bloomberg News reported. Officials in Zurich reduced their benchmark by 25 basis points to 1.25% on Thursday after a decision that observers found hard to predict. Some investors bet on a cut, while a small majority of the economists surveyed by Bloomberg anticipated no change. Policymakers also lowered their inflation projections, seeing it at 1% in 2026.
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The merger of the Swiss units of UBS, opens new tab and Credit Suisse could be completed as early as July 1, a senior executive at UBS was quoted as saying on Tuesday, Reuters reported. UBS, which acquired former rival Credit Suisse last year after the bank's collapse, had previously indicated the two units would be combined during the third quarter.
Sabine Keller-Busse, president of UBS Switzerland, told the Neue Zuercher Zeitung newspaper in an interview that the plan was progressing "very well." "The merger could by done by July 1," she said.
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A group of investors in Credit Suisse Group AG bonds that got wiped out when UBS Group AG rescued the bank in a Swiss government-brokered deal are suing the European country in a U.S. court, Bloomberg News reported. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in New York, seeks more than $82 million plus interest and is the latest legal fight taking place in the US and Europe related to the bond write-down. Holders of Credit Suisse’s additional tier 1 bonds effectively saw about $17 billion of their notes written down to zero after the sale.
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