Katharina Bart Profile picture
Mar 20, 2020 8 tweets 6 min read Read on X
#Swiss government prohibits gatherings of more than five people and decides on 32 bln Sfr in aid measures for business; #Zurich is closing the lakeshore, according to @NZZ (which infuriatingly has its real-time coverage of this behind paywall). #coronavirus #Switzerland
This is NOT a lockdown or even a curfew, but the government is stepping up its rhetoric, saying people should "urgently" stay at home. #coronavirus #Switzerland
.@alain_berset says #Swiss government prefers not to impose a full lockdown, appeals to population to be sensible.

"Our own behavior and not a lockdown is what is going to protect us, he says. "A lot depends on our behavior."

#coronavirus #Switzerland
The 32 bln Sfr is IN ADDITION to the 10 bln Sfr already decided.
#Swiss government will also offer short-term "COVID-19 bridge financing" for small businesses forced to shut. It will back loans for as much as 10 percent of revenue, capped at 20 mln Sfr.
#coronavirus #Switzerland
#Swiss finance minister: "We want to build trust: we are here for you, we won't let you down, go to your bank, solve the problem, the bank is ready to talk to you."
#Switzerland #coronavirus
Swiss fin min Ueli Maurer: We can't do this without running up debt – unless you guys want to pay us more taxes?
#coronavirus #Switzerland
He later adds the kicker, when asked about interest rates on these loans, "Hey, banks aren't Pestalozzi," referring to 18th century #Swiss social reformer and educator.
#coronavirus #Switzerland

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More from @KatharinaBart

Jan 7, 2021
Last April and then again in May, armed protesters entered #Michigan's capitol building.

The images – like this one from @Seth_Herald of Reuters – went around the world, of course.
Surely #Michigan would ban firearms in its legislature, right?

That absolutely didn't happen. @detroitnews noted last week #Michigan's failure to ban guns in capitol. Thanks for refusing despite having the authority, Gary Randall and @johntruscott...

eu.detroitnews.com/story/news/loc…
"Dem lawmakers called on the Michigan Capitol Commission, which is in charge of maintaining the Capitol grounds, to ban guns. That didn't happen. So they intro'd bills to implement the ban through the Legislature. Neither the House nor the Senate voted on any of the proposals."
Read 5 tweets
Jan 6, 2021
#Switzerland extends current #coronavirus restrictions by five weeks to February 28.

This is a list of those restrictions, put in place last month:



Government statement (in German):
admin.ch/gov/de/start/d…
Proposal must pass a mini-consultation with Swiss cantons – because federalism! – with final decision
expected on January 13.
The regional easing mechanism for cantons with low rates of infection is gonna be scotched, from Saturday. It will be federal or not at all from January 9 on – meaning everything will be closed everywhere.
Read 4 tweets
Oct 3, 2020
On-the-nose chronicle of why Tidjane Thiam left @CreditSuisse, as only an @nytimes can observe and tell. nyti.ms/30wvQKZ
Minor quibbles: his tenure wasn't short (four-plus years), and to say "His ouster attracted remarkably little notice outside Zurich" is inaccurate: the story dominated @WSJ and @FT financial services coverage for much of the five months between #spygate surfacing and TT leaving.
The piece is clearly told from TT's point of view and the @nytimes clearly had a lot of access to him and his family.
Read 8 tweets
Oct 3, 2020
This itvu (in German) with #Finma boss Mark Branson is an ideal complement to the media blitz by Daniel Thelesklaf recently:

Branson talks about suspicious activity reports in #Switzerland (#MoneyLaundering) surging to about 8,000 per year, from 1,000.

nzz.ch/wirtschaft/ban…
That's still low internationally (and remember Switzerland remains world's largest offshore haven), but Branson is arguing that notifications are high quality.

Whatever the quality, officials still can't keep up. We know this from the guy who oversaw it:

finews.com/news/english-n…
Branson also says that #1MDB is one of the most brazen and biggest graft cases the world has ever seen.

1MDB had art, jewelry, luxury property, Hollywood blockbuster, etc. but #PDVSA is not only much larger in scale, it also has far more tragic real-world impact on Venezuelans.
Read 5 tweets
Sep 11, 2020
This week, #Switzerland's powerful legal lobby quietly torpedoed changes to money laundering law aimed at getting off of an FATF watchlist. Next country exam looms 2022 (this piece, in German, impeccably parses the parliamentary process on AML).

nzz.ch/wirtschaft/gel…
Here's an explainer of where #Switzerland is on anti-money laundering law right now:

finews.com/news/english-n…
Here's the next reason it matters (there are many like this – but #PDVSA is the most acute and heart-wrenching right now):

finews.com/news/english-n…
Read 4 tweets
Sep 7, 2020
So, back in 2017 when banking conferences were still a thing, I was at the @handelsblatt autumn one in Frankfurt. They had the head of some Dutch bank which had done a lot with online retail in Germany through Diba.
The CEO was Ralph Hamers, who at that time was relatively unknown outside of certain circles (namely ING and digital/fintech as well among organizational gurus/agile).
.@finews_ch wrote about it at the time, obviously not knowing he would turn up in our midst three years later.

finews.ch/news/banken/28…

Reading it now, @HamersRalph has some quite radical ideas if you apply them to @UBS (a $2.6 trillion – yes trillion – wealth manager).
Read 5 tweets

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