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Figure 6: Customers security deposits held by the Credit Suisse and the
Swiss Bank Corporation (in billion current francs)
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1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
year
CS SBC Number of deposits with the CS
For the criteria used see Perrenoud/López/Adank/Baumann/Cortat/Peters, Place financière, 2002 (Publications
of the ICE), Chapter 1.
Source: CSG Archives, SKA Fund, 13.116.201.301, «Statistik über die Entwicklung»; UBS AG
Archives, SBV Fund, 1000023563.
the financial institutions in question, the total value of the accounts managed
in 1945 that were not included in balance sheets can be estimated at over 20
billion francs. 2 This value was thus higher than the balance-sheet totals.
Detailed information covering a longer period is only available for the Credit
Suisse and the Swiss Bank Corporation.
The drop in balance-sheet totals in the first half of the 1930s was also partly due
to the fact that foreign customers increasingly used deposit accounts, which
were not included in the balance sheet, for the safe-keeping of their assets.
Deposit management was encouraged by the banks since it offered them good
and regular opportunities to turn a profit.
During the First World War, the Swiss financial centre had become a neutral
trading centre and «hub» for capital. 3 In the subsequent years, the country, with
its hard currency, appeared to be an island of stability in the middle of a stormy
ocean of devaluation. For many European investors, an account with a Swiss
bank represented provisions stored away for bad times. During the 1920s and
in particular in the 1930s, the signs of political, economic and military unrest
led to massive international movements of capital, with so-called «hot money»
– short-term placement capital for speculative investment – being a new
60 000
50 000
40 000
30 000
20 000
10 000
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