Switzerland

Switzerland-based fintech company Advanon announced that it has closed the second round of funding and has raised 13.5 million swiss francs, as Finextra reported.

The funding round saw investors including one of the biggest telecom company from Switzerland, Swisscom, two venture funds b-to-v Partners and VI Partners as well as the founder of Partners Group, Urs Wietlisbach. There are three-quarters available to invest on the platform and one-quarter will be invested in equity. The online platform helps SMEs to bridge the long payment terms that they’re facing nowadays.

The annual Swiss unemployment rate rose to 3.3% in 2016, a 0.1 point increase on the previous year, according to figures released by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) on Tuesday. This may appear insignificant compared to the average European unemployment rate of 9.8% but it hides the very real problem of those forced to make up for the financial loss faced by their employers due to the strong franc.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will deliver a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum (WEF) session in Davos, Switzerland on January 17, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong said Wednesday. China’s President will be the first Chinese head of state to do so at the annual gathering of business leaders, politicians and cultural icons.

"We are all aware that we are now in the transition in the world to a multilateral, to a multipolar, geopolitical and geo-economic structure," World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

It’s a great place for bankers and to make new contacts

Corporate bankruptcies are on the increase in Switzerland in 2016 which covered 6504 companies, 6.7% more than last year. According to figures released today by the Society of Economic Information Creditreform, the major cause is represented by insolvencies (4648, + 2.9%), while the closures for gaps in the organization (+ 18% in 1856) recorded the largest increase .

Creditreform assumes that the latter figure is due to increased activity of some cantonal offices of the Commercial Register. Between 2013 and 2015 the number of closures ordered by the authorities were in fact dropped.

Switzerland’s central bank expects a 2016 full-year profit of 24 billion francs ($23.6 billion), it said on Monday; the results were largely down to foreign currency holdings built up to weaken the strong Swiss franc and its negative interest rate policy.

Profit from foreign currency positions amounted to more than CHF19 billion, the SNB added in the statement while a valuation gain of CHF3.9 billion was also recorded on gold holdings. Last year’s result is set to be the second-best in the last decade and follows a record loss for 2015.

The bank has built up foreign currency reserves by selling francs and buying foreign currency to weaken the franc, which it has consistently described as "significantly overvalued".

A Swiss insurance agency has ruled that drivers working for ride-hailing company Uber are classified as employees rather than independent contractors.

The decision means that Uber is required to pay earnings-based social security contributions. Because it’s an administrative decision, the next step for the dispute – one that Uber’s bound to take – is to call in the lawyers and head for the courts.

This follows a similar ruling by a UK employment tribunal in October which found that the two Uber drivers bringing the claim were employed as workers by Uber, rather than being freelance contractors.

A commercial court in Zurich has rejected a lawsuit against FIFA that accused the body of failing to project migrant workers in Qatar. The legal action was filed against FIFA last month by Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV) on behalf of a Bangladeshi construction worker employed on a 2022 World Cup project.
The lawsuit called on FIFA to force Qatar to adopt “minimum labour standards” for migrant workers.