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Switzerland Translations Services For Banking & Finance

Switzerland is the name more commonly used for the Swiss Confederation and is a landlocked country of almost 8 million people located in the centre of Western Europe. The country is a federal republic comprising 26 democratic units called “cantons”. Switzerland is bordered by Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein. Berne is the seat of the federation and effective capital. The country's two main economic centres are Geneva and Zurich and Switzerland is one of the richest countries in the world.

Switzerland is a multilingual country and has four national languages: German and French are the two main languages: Italian and Romansch have selected cantonal predominance. Politically, Switzerland has a long history of neutrality and hence is the ideal location to host many international organizations, including the Red Cross, the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) and one of the U.N.'s two European offices.

The economy is built on four pillars:

• banking and finance (Switzerland is a global leader in investment and personal banking and asset and trade finance)
• heavy industry (engineering and pharmaceuticals are key examples)
• agriculture and its derivatives (products such as cheese, chocolates and refined confectionary are global leaders)
• leisure and tourism (sailing and mountain walking in the summer and skiing in the winter).

Thus, banking and finance represents a major component of Switzerland’s economy. There are over 400 authorized banks and securities dealers led by the “Big Two”, namely UBS and Credit Suisse which are respectively the largest and second largest of the many Swiss-headquartered banks and which together account for more than half of all bank deposits in Switzerland. They have extensive branch networks throughout the country and are present in most of the international finance centres around the world. By contrast, the majority of personal bank accounts and smaller savings deposits are vested in the plethora of smaller local banks which know and serve the needs of their single neighbourhoods and communities or they serve just a few special rich clients.

UBS comprises Union Bank of Switzerland (est. 1862) and Swiss Bank Corporation (est. 1872) and is based in Zurich and Basel. It maintains a strong presence in major offices around the world, having several offices in the United States and one in each of London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong and with additional branches across the main five continents.

Credit Suisse is based in Zurich (est. 1856) and provides private banking, investment banking and asset management services.

The Swiss National Bank (“SNB”) is the country's central bank (est. 1906). Unlike other National Central Banks, such as the US Federal Reserve and the UK’s Bank of England, the SNB has share capital and its shares are held by the cantons, the cantonal banks, and a number of individual investors. Many National Central Banks have a regulatory supervisory role over their respective country's banking system. By contrast, in Switzerland, that role is the responsibility of the Federal Banking Commission.

The term “Private Bank” (a defined domestic legal term) covers many of those smaller “exclusive” banks which offer private banking services to affluent individuals both Swiss resident and foreign (“High Net Worth Individuals”). These private banks can trace their history back to the mid 18th century and in Switzerland their “Private Bank” designation conveys the fact that the partnership structure is their obligatory legal status. As such they are different from the many other smaller banks which have issued shared capital.

Also, there are the “cantonal banks”. Each of these banks is controlled by its relevant canton and they are state-guaranteed and quasi-governmental in nature.

Swiss bank privacy laws protect the information managed by the overall private banking sector; as such the information protection laws are similar to those which define the confidentiality protection relationship such as is established between doctor and patient and between lawyer and client. The Swiss government has traditionally viewed the right to privacy as a fundamental principle which should be protected by all democratic countries.

There are measures adopted to prevent money laundering, requiring account holder identification, and the reporting of any suspicious transactions to the federal and cantonal authorities. Switzerland cooperates in cross-border financial issues to tackle criminal activity.

Some bank accounts are afforded an extra degree of privacy. Information concerning such accounts, known as numbered accounts, is restricted to senior bank officers, rather than being accessible to all the employees of a bank. However completely anonymous accounts are not allowed by Swiss law.

The recent turbulence in the global finance markets has not enhanced the historic traditional Swiss reputation for caution among the international category of Swiss banks. Translation projects undertaken in Swiss French and German include web site content, sales and marketing material, documentation requirements for engineering and manufacturing.

Total Language Solutions are translation specialists in French and German for Switzerland in DTP, print ready and electronic forms of material, integrating text and diagrams and more besides. Total Language Solutions are translation experts in ensuring that text, drawings, colours and layout presentation and localisation meet consumer expectations and norms, without causing offence.

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