Forget banks!

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In Switzerland, all cans and chocolate. This is how the mafia admires in the British comedy Silver, Bankers and Scammers in 1977. And it was true: in the post-World War II era, cross-border wealth management made the Confederacy the third largest financial center in the world. Banks were good taxpayers and important employers, so they shaped the country’s politics and image accordingly.

In a year when the movie “Silver, Banken and the Swindlers”, filmed mainly in Ticino, was shown in cinemas, the branch of the Swiss Credit Bank in Chiasso made international headlines. With the support of top management in Zurich, she has been actively helping Italian clients avoid taxes for years. SP then launched a popular initiative to abolish bank secrecy. Result: 73 percent of those who voted rejected the request. The defeat of the Social Democrats was so crushing that since then they have bypassed the financial center.

The banking world, with everything that belonged to it at that time, formed the self-esteem of the Swiss. Hans-Rudolf Merz, Minister of Finance from 2004 to 2010, put it this way: “The protection of privacy through banking secrecy is part of our value system.”

Are you, dear reader, talking too much about the past? That is the point! Anyone who watches the accounts of Credit Suisse’s inglorious end inevitably gets the impression that Switzerland is the same as it was in the days of bank secrecy. “NZZ am Sonntag” describes the demise of CS as “the story of a country that has lost part of its identity”. Swiss TV asks: “Was it with the successful Swiss model?” The Tages-Anzeiger publishes an editorial titled: “Swiss Identity Fluctuates”, the French-language Swiss newspaper Le Temps speaks of the “trauma”.

However, in reality, Switzerland today feels only phantom pain. Even if many people, especially those in positions of influence, haven’t noticed it, it’s not just banks and chocolates anymore. The economic nation has freed itself from the financial center. Our country is a center of innovative research and one of the world’s leading industrial centers. In the current SonntagsBlick we present several Swiss companies with a worldwide presence, with very real products representing a large number of sectors. Our selection shows that there is no reason to bemoan the outdated image of Switzerland as a safe planet.

Of course, banks are important lenders to any economy. However, in addition, their importance is exaggerated. In his book How Value Comes into the World? writes economics professor Mariana Mazzucato of University College London: “Up until the 1970s, economists took it for granted that the financial sector was merely a distributor, not a producer, of wealth. It wasn’t until the 1990s that bankers were seen as creative superstars, wizards who supposedly could create value out of nothing. After the federal government had to provide huge sums of public money to save the financial system for the second time in 15 years, we should no longer succumb to this dark magic.

Such an aggravation of the prospects is by no means an end in itself, it is a question of a specific policy. The fact that Switzerland never became a member of the European Community, and then the EU, was essentially not taken into account by the banks. Even today, perhaps the most effective opposition to a better understanding with Europe comes from circles that fear more oversight of the financial sector by Brussels. Financial influencers don’t care that Switzerland’s industry and research often suffers from this isolation.

The Swiss economy has great cards. But we can only win with it if we recognize its value.

Source: Blick