Outside Zurich’s central station a statue of Alfred Escher looks proudly down Bahnhofstrasse, one of the world’s most expensive shopping streets, to Paradeplatz, the heart of the city’s financial district. Trains still trundle along the Swiss rail network that the 19th-century industrialist pioneered — but the bank he founded 167 years ago to finance its
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China said it “firmly opposes” any forced sale of TikTok, denouncing Washington’s demand that the social media app cut ties with its home country ahead of a pivotal hearing in the US on Thursday. “Forcing the sale of TikTok will seriously damage the confidence of investors from all over the world, including from China, on
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday pressed ahead with its monetary tightening campaign despite the recent turmoil in the banking sector, raising its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point and signalling another increase to come. Following its latest two-day meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to lift the federal funds rate
The Swiss government has banned Credit Suisse from paying deferred bonuses awarded before 2022 in a move that has sparked more upset from staff at the failed bank. The federal finance ministry said on Tuesday it had imposed “remuneration-related measures” on Credit Suisse as a result of the use of taxpayer funds to facilitate its
Credit Suisse bondholders were in uproar on Monday and the European Central Bank raised concerns after the rescue deal by rival UBS wiped out $17bn of the failed Swiss bank’s bonds, upending debt recovery norms and undermining financial market confidence. “In my eyes, this is against the law,” said Patrik Kauffman, a fund manager at
Vladimir Putin has made a surprise visit to Mariupol, the Ukrainian city all but destroyed by his invading army last year, in an apparent show of defiance after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant accusing the Russian president of war crimes. State television showed Putin arriving at the port city by helicopter in
US president Joe Biden is calling on Congress to make it easier for regulators to punish executives at failed banks, including by clawing back profits from share sales and banning them from working in the banking industry. Biden said he was “firmly committed to accountability for those responsible for this mess,” in a statement released on
The market volatility triggered by the failure of three banks in the past week has spooked traders in economically vital US mortgage-backed securities, leaving other lenders, usually important buyers, on the sidelines. The $11tn market for bundles of US home loans was already feeling the strain of last year’s soaring interest rates, which pushed up
China has named a general who is under US sanctions as its new defence minister, creating an additional hurdle for military dialogue as the two countries fret that geopolitical tensions could boil over into conflict. Li Shangfu, an aerospace engineer with little previous international exposure, was confirmed as the top military official on Sunday. His
More than 200 UK-based tech company executives have urged Downing Street to intervene after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which they warned poses an “existential threat to the UK tech sector”. The Bank of England moved to put the UK arm of SVB into insolvency late on Friday following the shutdown earlier in the
Something is going very wrong for teenagers. Between 1994 and 2010, the share of British teens who do not consider themselves likeable fell slightly from 6 per cent to 4 per cent; since 2010 it has more than doubled. The share who think of themselves as a failure, who worry a lot and who are
Russia has carried out one of its largest strikes on Ukraine including with nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles that hit cities and knocked off back-up power at Europe’s largest atomic plant. Of the more than 80 rockets fired, six were nuclear-capable hypersonic Kh-47 Kinzhal air-to-surface missiles, according to Ukrainian officials. The assault has left much of Kyiv
Here is a thought experiment. If Taiwan did not exist, would the US and China still be at loggerheads? My hunch is yes. Antagonism between top dogs and rising powers is part of the human story. The follow-up is whether such tensions would persist if China were a democracy rather than a one-party state. That
China will overhaul supervision of its financial system and bolster science and technology to try to catch up with the west, as Xi Jinping embarks on a third term as president with one of the biggest reforms of the state apparatus in years. The changes — part of a series of ministerial reforms to China’s
Xi Jinping has called Vladimir Putin his best friend. But now the Russian leader is in urgent need of help from China. Putin’s army is bogged down in Ukraine and running short of ammunition. Should Xi prove that he is a friend indeed by supplying Russia with weapons? China’s decision will say a lot about
China will aim for an economic expansion of “around 5 per cent” for 2023, its lowest target for more than three decades, as President Xi Jinping seeks to restore pre-pandemic levels of growth and prepares to centralise power further in his own hands. Announcing the target, which was below last year’s goal of 5.5 per
The biggest selling point for the UK stock market in recent months has been its slow, steady, boring nature. This is a quality that should not be taken for granted. The era dominated by whizz-bang, US tech-led stocks is fading. Sure, it made a good shot at reasserting itself in the final months of last
Germany has asked Switzerland to sell some of its decommissioned Leopard 2 tanks as it struggles to cobble together two battalions of the fighting vehicles to send to Ukraine. Berlin has requested that its neighbour sell some of its 96 mothballed Leopard 2 tanks to the German arms producer Rheinmetall. That could allow European countries
In 2002, I moved from London to what was then a blessedly cheaper Paris. London had its almighty banks; Paris was the “Capital of the 19th Century”. In fact, I felt I was emigrating from modernity. France then had lower average incomes than the UK and got less foreign direct investment (FDI), partly because of
UK house prices registered the largest decline in more than a decade last month as higher interest rates and the wider cost of living crisis hit demand, according to a closely watched survey. Property prices fell 1.1 per cent in February compared with the same month last year, the biggest drop since November 2012, and