61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

4.6 The Banking System and Financial Services
The question of how the Swiss banks dealt with the assets of victims of National
Socialism and Nazi agents was the catalyst for the most recent debate
surrounding Switzerland’s relationship with Nazi Germany. 1 After the First
World War, Switzerland had become an important international financial
centre. Against the background of the world economic crisis two problematic
developments emerged: firstly, Swiss banks had to face the fact that their
business assets in Germany were blocked from 1931 on; and secondly, large
amounts of flight capital were flowing into Switzerland, some of whose owners
remained silent even before 1945, while others sent capital which became
«dormant» in the post-war period. The following section provides an overview
of some characteristics of the structure of the Swiss financial centre. It then
addresses the relationship between Swiss banks and their business operations
with Germany during the war, deals with the trade in securities, and finally
examines the causes for later dormant accounts.
Swiss banking in the inter-war period
The Swiss financial centre comprised a broad spectrum of banks, financial and
holding companies, investment trusts and intermediaries (trustees, lawyers, and
notaries). The bank sector was made up of the major banks, private, cantonal,
and local banks. In 1939, there was a total of 363 banks in Switzerland whose
balance-sheet totals together amounted to17.7 billion francs. The major banks
included (in order of size of the balance-sheet total) the Swiss Bank Corporation
– SBC (Schweizerischer Bankverein, SBV), the Credit Suisse – CS (Schweizerische
Kreditanstalt, SKA), the Swiss Volksbank (Schweizerische Volksbank, SVB), the
Union Bank of Switzerland – UBS (Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft, SBG), the
Federal Bank – FB (Eidgenössische Bank, EIBA), Leu & Co. AG and the Basel
Commercial Bank – BCB (Basler Handelsbank, BHB). They financed international
trading and long-term industrial investment, yet were also involved in
short-term transactions. A second group comprises the cantonal banks which
fundamentally differed from major and private banks in that they were public
companies with a state guarantee. It must be said, however, that some of the
cantonal banks acquired a highly international clientele. These included the
Bernese Cantonal Bank, the Basel Cantonal Bank, and in particular the Zurich
Cantonal Bank which, in 1939, had a higher balance-sheet total than the largest
major bank. Together the cantonal banks held 44.4% of the sum of the balancesheet
totals of all the banks, while the major banks held only 24.2%. The Swiss
National Bank’s definition of local banks included 80 Bodenkreditbanken (over
60% of the balance-sheet total made up by Swiss mortgage loans), including
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