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Swiss Bankers Association Survey 2003
- Overwhelming support for financial privacy
- High level of confidence in Swiss banks
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Basel, 6 March 2003 - The overwhelming majority of Swiss are in favour
of protecting financial privacy vis-à-vis third parties. 80% of those questioned said they are clearly
in favour of maintaining bank client confidentiality. At the same time, the number of Swiss personally
satisfied with their own bank has increased: 83% described their relationship with their bank as “positive”
or “very positive” (2002: 78%). The general image of the banking sector as a whole has improved compared
with last year’s findings. The banks are seen as trustworthy and secure and have regained their place
as being considered the most important branch of the Swiss economy. These are some of the findings of
the Swiss Bankers Association’s annual survey carried out by MIS-Trend of Lausanne.
For
several years now the Swiss Bankers Association has been conducting annual surveys amongst Swiss citizens
to find out about their relationship with the banking industry and their views about the overall significance
of banks for the Swiss economy. This year the questions concentrated on more political aspects of banking,
but at the same time the long-term consistency of the survey was maintained. This continuity allows
the best possible comparison of results and permits any trends to be reliably identified.
A
clear declaration in favour of financial privacy
This year’s survey clearly shows
that the Swiss attach great importance to the protection of financial privacy. The overwhelming majority
- 90% - of those questioned believe that protecting bank clients’ financial data vis-à-vis third parties
to be “very important” (2002: 87%). 80% said they were in favour of maintaining bank customer confidentiality
(2002: 73%). This view also holds in an international context: 74% believe that the present international
pressure on Swiss bank client confidentiality must be resisted and that Switzerland must not sacrifice
this confidentiality (2002: 69%). This year’s survey shows that the overwhelming majority of Swiss are
clearly in favour of bank client confidentiality.
This year there was a more positive
judgement of banks’ efforts to fight money laundering and to prevent funds of criminal origin from entering
the banking system. 37% of those surveyed believed the banks were doing enough in both these areas.
Like last year, this year’s survey showed that a clear majority (two-thirds) said they believed that
money laundering was not a problem that just concerned banks.
Improved
image of banks
The level of personal satisfaction with one’s main bank - the bank
with which most business is conducted - is higher this year than last year. 83% described their relationship
with their bank as “positive“ or “very positive“ (2002: 78%). The view of the banking industry as a
whole was clearly better this year than in 2002: 49% described their view as “positive“ or “very positive“
(2002: 41%). As in previous years, respondents believed that the strengths of the Swiss financial centre
lie in trustworthiness (65%), security (67%) as well as in a competent workforce (68%).
The
generally positive judgement of the Swiss towards the Swiss financial centre has clearly improved even
more over the past year: 77% believe that the Swiss financial centre enjoys a good and professional
reputation: (2002: 72%). This year 60% of those asked said banking is the most important branch
of the Swiss economy (2002: 51%). But once again, respondents said banks could improve their commitment
to and support of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). 65% said banks do too little for SMEs
(2002: 60%). But on this subject respondents said that the government and politicians did no better
than the banks.
Note to journalists:
The
survey was conducted in January 2003 using a representative sample of 1,029 Swiss. The margin of error
is + / - 3.1%.
PDF Studie 2003 (German)
PDF Etude 2003 (French)
| Contacts |
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| Thomas Sutter |
James Nason |
| Head of Communications Switzerland |
Head of International Communications |
Swiss Bankers Association,
Basel |
Swiss Bankers Association,
Basel |
| Tel. +41 61 295 92 06 |
Tel. +41 61 295 92 15 |
| Fax +41 61 272 53 82 |
Fax +41 61 272 53 82 |
 www.swissbanking.org |
www.swissbanking.org |
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