The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) known as the bank for central banks, which was founded in Basel, Switzerland in 1930, issued its 79th Annual Report, and said financial products should be treated like medicines and sold to consumers only when they are certified safe to prevent a repeat of global financial crisis, Finfacts reported. The BIS said government efforts to revive the global economy might have only a temporary impact because banks are not being pushed hard enough to fix their underlying problems.

The Swiss National Bank is attempting to put a “line in the sand” with its first intervention in the foreign-exchange market in more than a decade after previous attempts to weaken the franc failed, Bloomberg reported. Currency traders said the Zurich-based central bank intervened twice yesterday, driving the franc down against more than 150 currencies tracked by Bloomberg. It fell the most in three months versus the dollar and euro. The franc extended declines today.

UBS, the Swiss banking giant that sought help from the nation's central bank last year, said Tuesday that it lost 8.1 billion Swiss francs, or $6.9 billion, in the fourth quarter as it continued to write down the value of some debt assets and wealth management clients withdrew funds, the International Herald Tribune reported. The loss, which was bigger than some analysts expected, compares with a loss of 13 billion francs in the fourth quarter of 2007 and a profit in the third quarter of last year.

European countries still deal with insolvent firms far more harshly than America does, and most such firms end up in liquidation, a recent Economist analysis found. They often treat creditors badly too, meaning that neither side ends up satisfied. Observers worry that Europe will cope with the coming flood of defaults far less effectively than America, meaning a slower recovery. In recent years several European countries have tried to change their systems so that companies have a better chance of survival.