Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located at the confluence of Western, Central and Southern Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Alps and the Jura; the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, whereas most of the country's population of 9 million are concentrated on the plateau, which hosts the largest cities and economic centres, including Zürich, Geneva and Basel.
Banking in Switzerland dates to the early 18th century through Switzerland's merchant trade and has, over the centuries, grown into a complex, regulated, and international industry. Banking is seen as emblematic of Switzerland. The country has a long history of banking secrecy and client confidentiality reaching back to the early 1700s. Starting as a way to protect wealthy European banking interests, Swiss banking secrecy was codified in 1934 with the passage of a landmark federal law, the Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks. These laws, which were used to protect assets of persons being persecuted by Nazi authorities, have also been used by people and institutions seeking to illegally evade taxes, hide assets, or generally commit financial crime.
HSBC Holdings plc is a British universal bank and financial services group headquartered in London, England, with historical and business links to East Asia and a multinational footprint. It is the largest Europe-based bank by total assets, ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 trillion in assets under custody (AUC) and $4.9 trillion in assets under administration (AUA).
Deutsche Bank AG, sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. Founded in 1870, the bank grew through multiple acquisitions, including Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1929, as a consequence of which it was known from 1929 to 1937 as Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft or DeDi-Bank, Bankers Trust in 1998, and Deutsche Postbank in 2010.
Credit Suisse Group AG is a global investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world and provides services in investment banking, private banking, asset management, and shared services. It is known for strict bank–client confidentiality and banking secrecy. The Financial Stability Board considers it to be a global systemically important bank. Credit Suisse is also a primary dealer and Forex counterparty of the Federal Reserve in the United States.
Migros is Switzerland's largest retail company, its largest supermarket chain and largest employer. It is also one of the forty largest retailers in the world. It is structured in the form of a co-operative federation, with more than two million members.
Denner is a discount supermarket chain in Switzerland. It is Switzerland's third-largest supermarket chain after Migros and Coop with 11.4% market share. It is owned by the Federation of Migros Cooperatives since 2007.
Julius Bär Group AG, known alternatively as Julius Baer Group Ltd., is a private banking corporation founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it is among the older Swiss banking institutions. In terms of assets under management, Julius Baer is number two among Swiss banks after UBS and the biggest pure-play private bank.
Gottlieb Duttweiler was a Swiss businessman and politician, founder of both the Migros chain of grocery stores and the Alliance of Independents party.
Migros Online is the Swiss market leader among online supermarkets and a subsidiary of the Migros Genossenschafts-Bund (MGB), the largest retailer in Switzerland.
Union Bancaire Privée is a private bank and wealth management firm headquartered in Geneva. UBP is one of the largest private banks in Switzerland, and serves private and institutional clients. The bank was founded in 1969 by Edgar de Picciotto.
The Alnatura Produktions- und Handels GmbH is a chain of organic food supermarkets and producer of organic food headquartered in Darmstadt, Hesse in Germany. The company was founded in 1984 and distributes food and textiles, produced according to ecological aspects, under the trademark Alnatura. These products are sold both by various drugstore and retail chains as well as the captive organic supermarket chain Alnatura Super Natur Markt. Alnatura currently operates 107 supermarkets in Germany, each with 500 to 800 square meters of retail space, mainly in Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate.
The energy sector in Switzerland is, by its structure and importance, typical of a developed country. Apart from hydroelectric power and firewood, the country has few indigenous energy resources: oil products, natural gas and nuclear fuel are imported, so that in 2013 only 22.6% of primary energy consumption was supplied by local resources.
UBS Group AG is a multinational investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres as the largest Swiss banking institution and the largest private bank in the world. UBS client services are known for their strict bank–client confidentiality and culture of banking secrecy. Because of the bank's large positions in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific markets, the Financial Stability Board considers it a global systemically important bank.
The Swiss investment bank and financial services company, UBS Group AG, has been at the center of numerous tax evasion and avoidance investigations undertaken by U.S., French, German, Israeli, and Belgian tax authorities as a consequence of their strict banking secrecy practices.
Swiss Leaks is the name of a journalistic investigation, released in February 2015, of a giant tax evasion scheme allegedly operated with the knowledge and encouragement of the British multinational bank HSBC via its Swiss subsidiary, HSBC Private Bank (Suisse). Triggered by leaked information from French computer analyst Hervé Falciani on accounts held by over 100,000 clients and 20,000 offshore companies with HSBC in Geneva, the disclosed information was then called "the biggest leak in Swiss banking history".
Adele Duttweiler was a Swiss philanthropist and the wife of Gottlieb Duttweiler, founder of both the Migros group and the LdU political party.
Swissveg, previously known as the Swiss Association for Vegetarianism, is a Swiss association in the legal context of article 60ff of the Swiss civil code (SCC), where members are exclusively vegetarians. Swissveg runs campaigns, organizes events with the goal to reduce the consumption of animal products.
Cargo Sous Terrain is a planned underground logistics system in Switzerland. It was set up as an association in September 2013, and was based at the headquarters of the Swiss retailer Coop in Basel. It converted itself into a share company on 24 March 2017.
The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that were published beginning on April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, former Panamanian offshore law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and compiled with similar leaks into a searchable database.
