Swiss banks welcome huge flow of foreign money
AFP, Zurich
As Switzerland's two largest commercial banks announced huge rises in quarterly profits over the past week, Swiss bankers were welcoming the return of large amounts of foreign cash to their vaults. Nestled in the heart of Europe and sheltered from much of the world's strife, the wealthy little Alpine country has traditionally been a financial safehaven. Its discreet bankers, backed by several generations of experience, point to Switzerland's stable economy and vaunt the merits of tax-beating banking secrecy laws. And that decades-old sales pitch still appears to work magic. UBS, the country's largest banking group, raked in a record 35 billion Swiss francs (23.3 billion dollars) in new funds under its management, as it doubled its first-quarter net profit this year to 2.42 billion Swiss francs. The wealth and asset management business was "growing fast", UBS commented last Tuesday. A day later, its slightly smaller rival Credit Suisse announced a near seven-fold increase in its first quarter net profit to 1.86 billion Swiss francs, also partly fuelled by regained deposits.
| 
