Important Events:
Switzerland and the World

Important Events:
Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC)
Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS)

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the "central bank for central banks", becomes operational. It was founded for the settlement of the German reparation payments from WW1. Its seat is in Basle.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS)

UBS sets up a branch in Ascona.

Great Britain moves away from the Gold Standard. Devaluation of the £-Sterling by 30 percent.

The German banking crisis also has effects on the Swiss banking system.

End of the Weimar Republic.

Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of the Reich in Germany

As a consequence of the Great Depression, UBS has to reduce its capital from 100 million CHF to 80 million CHF, because its activities and its balance sheet had shrunk considerably.

The USA abandon the Gold-Standard. Twenty other countries already had done so, but not Switzerland.

On March 1st the Swiss Federal
Banking Law of November 8, 1934, enters into force. In its article 47 it contains the punishment of all breaches of confidentiality by bank employees on the federal level ( banking secrecy ).

UBS acquires the Banca Unione di Credito, Lugano, with a branch in Chiasso.

Devaluation of the Swiss Franc
by 30 percent following the devaluation of the French Franc.

Italy under Mussolini occupies and annexes Ethiopia after a seven months war.

Begin of the Spanish Civil War. (It ends 1939 with a victory of the troops of General Franco.)

The balance sheet total of SBC shrinks from 1,6 billion CHF in 1930 to 1,0 billion CHF. in 1935.

SBC establishes its subsidiary Métaux Précieux SA, Le Locle (later Neuchâtel) as its precious metals refinery.

UBS has to reduce its capital again from 80 million CHF to 40 million CHF. Its balance sheet total is now less than half the size it had in 1929 (reduction from 993 million CHF in 1929 to 441 million CHF at the end of 1935).