English in Banking blog
Join our Business Travellers Event to discuss challenges in the Financial Services Industry on 11 September, Geneva
Register and join our Business Travellers Event with a focus on the Financial Services Industry on Wednesday, 11 September 2019 in Geneva. We will discuss the current regulatory and compliance landscape for international business travellers.
What is the event about?
- Global trends driving increased risk in relation to business travel;
- The growing regulatory burden on employers and employees, and the increased efforts by authorities to enforce these regulations;
- Steps employers are taking to monitor business travel risks and improve governance; and
- Current market best practice - prioritising compliance risks, quantifying costs and addressing duty of care considerations;
- Permanent establishment risks in relation to business travel.
BREAKING NEWS: US Senate approves Swiss-US double tax treaty protocol
On July 17, 2019, the US Senate approved the long-overdue 2009 protocol to the Swiss-US double tax treaty, the core element of which concerns administrative assistance.
Formally, the protocol will enter into force once the instruments of ratification are exchanged, which is likely to happen in the course of the coming months.
Five things a private bank should do today
In a series of blogs we have highlighted how Swiss private banking executives see the future of wealth management in 2030 and discussed the implications. In this blog we outline a number of key steps that in our view every private bank should be taking today.
The Swiss Federal Council kicks off Swiss withholding tax reform
On 26 June 2019, the Swiss Federal Council informed about its intentions to reform the Swiss withholding tax system. The need for such a reform is two-fold: Firstly, the reform aims at strengthening the Swiss debt capital market. Secondly, it strives to increase tax honesty of Swiss resident individual investors.
The key parameters established by the Swiss Federal Council in its 1.5-page communication partially piggyback on the ideas presented in an expert board’s report early this year, which was discussed in a prior blog post.
The Swiss Federal Council mandated the Federal Department of Finance to prepare a consultation draft, which should be available in autumn.
Banking going to the Cloud – Main Swiss regulations to consider
The cloud is not the future or an emerging trend any more: it is the present and is a critical tool for financial institutions if they are to stay competitive in today’s challenging business environment. In our recent published global paper “Getting Cloud Right – How can banks stay ahead of the curve?” we explained the key components of a successful ‘cloud journey’ and the major steps that need to be undertaken.
In this blog we give some deeper insights into Swiss banking-related regulations on banking secrecy and the supervision of outsourcing.
DAC6: The clock is ticking… Less than 1 year until go-live
The latest amendment to the EU’s Directive on Administrative Cooperation (“DAC6”) requires EU intermediaries (and in certain cases relevant EU taxpayers) to report on cross-border tax arrangements that are potentially aggressive or abusive, so-called “reportable cross-border arrangements” (RCBAs).
After the go-live on 1 July 2020, DAC6 will require reporting within 30 days after the start date of a new RCBA. In addition, DAC6 includes a retroactive element requiring reporting of all arrangements going back to 25 June 2018 by 31 August 2020.
Even though member states are still transposing the Directive into local law, affected institutions should kick off their implementation efforts now. Delaying implementation bears the risk of not being ready in time for the first reporting and will additionally increase the review backlog for RCBAs subject to the retroactive reporting obligation.
Financial Services: Who will be leading the next Ecosystem?
Ecosystems and digital platforms are expanding across economies, influencing and disrupting traditional business models of multiple industries worldwide.
Michael Lewrick, Head Innovation Labs, Deloitte, predicts that in the next 10 years approximately 1/3 of all revenues worldwide will be generated by only 15 ecosystems: “So it is time that we rethink and consider what role one can take in an ecosystem”.
Especially in the financial services industry an ecosystem play becomes paramount to reduce the risk of future marginalization and to tap into new ways of strategic growth. But who are the predominant players in an ecosystem? What roles can financial services providers play in it? And, most importantly: Who will be leading the ecosystems of tomorrow?
Start spreading the news: Updates from the Kaplan tax conference in New York
The annual International Tax & Information Reporting Conference in New York represents an opportunity for industry to hear from the IRS and discuss tax technical challenges.
Hosted over two days in New York on the 5th and 6th of June, as active participants, Deloitte AG were able to hear first-hand the hot tax topics affecting US and non-US financial institutions.
So what were the key messages communicated by IRS representatives and what are challenges facing the financial services community? This blog summarises the key messages from the conference.
Compression auctions as tool to avoid a hard “IBOR-exit”
The IBOR transition is now well under way on the derivative front, and some key steps have been taken in identifying various LIBOR replacements.1 The next challenge will be shaping the derivatives market for the new benchmark rates. Preliminary assessments have been undertaken to assess potential replacements for LIBOR derivatives.
European business sentiment mixed: Negative interest rates expected for longer in Switzerland
The year started well, with many countries reporting healthy economic growth, the US for example reaching 3.2% and Switzerland 1.7% compared to Q1 2018. But business sentiment is mixed, as the latest Deloitte CFO Survey shows (European results). Overall sentiment among European CFOs has changed little since autumn 2018 and is finely balanced between optimists and pessimists. Financial services (FS) CFOs tend to be pessimistic for most indicators, particularly with regard to margin outlook and risk appetite. Sentiment in Switzerland has weakened across all sectors compared to last autumn, but Swiss CFOs in all sectors are more optimistic than most of their European peers, as the Swiss results show.