Switzerland

Swiss-Swedish engineering giant ABB said Wednesday that it had uncovered significant embezzlement at its South Korean subsidiary, which it warned would heavily impact its 2016 earnings. The suspected theft will lead to a pre-tax charge of about $100 million.

The company said it had discovered "a sophisticated criminal scheme related to a significant embezzlement and misappropriation of funds" at the South Korean unit.
The executive was treasurer and one of two integrity ombudsmen for ABB Korea – to whom staff were supposed to report any ethical concerns – according to an online company magazine available on ABB’s Korean website.

Switzerland’s trade surplus increased in January as imports declined sharply from the previous month, the Federal Customs Administration reported Tuesday. The trade surplus rose to CHF 4.7 billion in January from CHF 2.7 billion in December.
Month-on-month, exports slid 4% m/m in real terms, after surging to a record level in December (+9.7% m/m). At the same time, imports slid 5.3% versus a 0.6% fall in the previous month.

The amount of cash kept with the Swiss central bank jumped last week, data on Monday showed, suggesting it intervened to weaken a franc currency buoyed by political risks in France and renewed worries about Greece’s public finances.

Since Donald Trump’s surprise U.S. presidential election victory on November 18, the 4.458 billion franc increase in sight deposits was the biggest
Sight deposits – cash that commercial banks hold with the Swiss National Bank, and seen as a guide to its currency market interventions – rose to 543.458 billion Swiss francs ($541.62 billion) from 539 billion francs a week earlier.

Pension funds with defined benefit schemes were fewer in Switzerland in 2015 than 10 years earlier, according to official statistics released today. The figures showed 230 funds disappeared, according to the country’s federal statistics bureau (BFS): the number of pension funds with defined benefit (DB) plans (Leistungsprimat) fell from 289 to 58 between 2005 to 2015, with only 15 public.

Whereas one in five individuals were in DB schemes in 2005, in 2015 this ratio was down to 1 in 15, according to the statistics. The BFS said that the decline in the number of Pensionskassen running DB plans went hand-in-hand with a decline in the number of scheme members.

Bitcoin ATMs are becoming increasingly redundant. Innovative bitcoin service providers and companies are transforming existing bank and public ATMs into bitcoin machines by installing their signature software.

In countries like Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines and Switzerland, users can visit literally any convenience store, bank ATM and subway teller machine and see a bitcoin option. Bitcoin companies are developing software that are applicable to existing ATMs and allowing users to utilize machines located nationwide to either purchase or sell bitcoin.

UBS said Northern Trust is buying fund services units of UBS in Luxembourg and Switzerland, on Monday. The company did not announce the financial terms of the deal.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2017, subject to applicable regulatory and fund board approvals and other customary closing conditions.

The Swiss Market Index, the most important basket of Swiss blue-chips, is often considered a value-investment, not only for the traditional role of Switzerland as a safe-haven but also for the predominance of defensive companies in its basket, some of which are among the largest companies by market capitalization the world.

Nevertheless, it is not so simple to link the aversion of investors to risk to the relative course of the Swiss stocks. When the investors look for safety, for example, the Swiss Franc is often the main beneficiary but a hard currency is not the best environment for global business and so is explained the relative weakness of the Swiss markets during the bearish trends of the euro against the Swiss franc.

Medical residents at a Swiss teaching hospital spend almost half of their workday on the computer, which is approximately three times the amount of time they spend with patients, according to a Swiss study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The researchers conducted a time and motion study to evaluate how residents spend their time during day and evening hospital shifts. From May to July 2015, they studied 36 Swiss internal medicine residents with an average of 29 months of postgraduate training.

Residents spent 52.4% of their time on activities indirectly related to patients compared to 28% of their time on activities directly related to patients during day shifts. On average, residents spend 1.7 hours per day with patients, compared with 5.2 hours using computers, and 13 minutes doing both.