61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

concerned about security and occasionally tried to ensure that the Swiss banks
deposited their assets in a country they thought safe.
While currency instability in other countries caused capital to be transferred to
Swiss banks, there was a justified fear that this capital flow (conditional upon
speculation) could reverse its course. The Swiss National Bank, which was
responsible for regulating the money supply, kept a close watch on the shortterm
flow of capital. Other countries had already fallen victim to such shortterm
movements of funds: between 1931 and 1933 banks in the USA lost
foreign deposits when the gold standard was abandoned, and from April 1933
on, enormous sums were also withdrawn from French banks (at first much of
this money was deposited in Switzerland). In 1935 there was indeed a lot of
speculation against the Swiss franc, and the gold reserves held by the Swiss
National Bank declined by 744 million francs in the first five months of 1935.
The Swiss National Bank and the other banks reacted to this development in
June 1935 by drawing up a gentlemen’s agreement prohibiting gold trading
with private customers as well as foreign currency time-deposits. And in
June 1936, the Federal Council passed a Decree which made speculating against
the Swiss franc a criminal offence. For various reasons, including the fact that
these measures were – as could have been foreseen – not successful, the Swiss
government joined the gold-bloc and devalued the Swiss franc in
September 1936. Furthermore, an attempt was made to attenuate the destabilising
influx of hot money through a new gentlemen’s agreement in
November 1937. This agreement between the banks and the Swiss National
Bank underlined the desire to protect Switzerland’s interests by «deterring an
excessive influx of foreign funds and, as far as flight capital was concerned, to
stimulate its exodus». Most of the banks agreed not to pay interest on foreign
current accounts and to charge a 1% commission on time deposits. 6 This led to
a drop of 917 million francs in 1937 and 709 million francs in 1939 in the total
assets deposited by foreign customers with the major Swiss banks, although
towards the end of the war the total amount was again over 900 million francs
(1944: 902 million francs). 7 The high rate of fluctuation in international
movement of capital had left the Swiss banks vulnerable, since funds deposited
might be withdrawn at any time to speculate against the Swiss franc. They
would thus have been better off had they invested «bad» or «hot» money with
care and only lent a small proportion of it. 8 Nevertheless, not every bank had
kept to this basic rule: the only major bank in the French-speaking part of
Switzerland, the Geneva Comptoir d’Escompte, had considerable assets in
Central Europe and was already having problems as early as 1931. Attempts to
save the bank with the help of an underwriting consortium of other banks and
later through a merger with the Union Financière were unsuccessful; in 1934,
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