In Berne, Switzerland, there has been a redistribution in occupational pensions which has revealed that it too is not a funded pensions plan as people previously assumed. For at least twelve years, pension fund monies have flowed from the employed to the pensioners. The amount has reached a tremendous scale with funds in the order of more than 90 billion francs being redistributed during these years. This is the result of data collected by PPC Metrics, the pension advisor for the SonntagsZeitung.

The AHV pension scheme is heavily redistributed in the pay-as-you-go system, but the occupational pension schemes should have been fully funded. With low-interest rates, the presumed fully funded occupational pension plan is now also operating as a Ponzi scheme. The prospect of future payments has been called into question

UBS will charge a 2 franc fee for withdrawing cash at the bank counter beginning in July, be it a withdrawal in CHF from a UBS private account or from a UBS current account. Thus, UBS stands (at least for now) pretty much alone. A survey of various institutions revealed that hardly any banks charge cash for cash withdrawals at the counter. One of the few exceptions is the Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB). Exceptions to this rule are customers with a private or savings account of the “ZKB inclusive base” package. These customers pay 5 francs for payments at the counter in francs or foreign currencies. However, industry observers expect other banks to follow UBS’s example soon, given the pressure on earnings.