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Hire purchase in Switzerland: Ownership is the deciding question
Read more: Hire purchase in Switzerland: Ownership is the deciding questionA legal and tax analysis of hire purchase, finance leases and financed sales Hire purchase is possible in Switzerland. Swiss law does not, however, provide a separate, comprehensive statutory regime for a contract type called Mietkauf. What matters is therefore not the title of the contract but the rights and obligations the parties actually agree.…
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An AI agent should have only the authority it needs.
Read more: An AI agent should have only the authority it needs.The Monetary Authority of Singapore and industry partners have published a paper on safeguards for agents in finance. Its SAFR framework proposes checks at the point of action: what is the agent authorised to do, what must be tested before execution and what record must be kept? It is a proposal from Singapore, not a…
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Succession, M&A and growth
Read more: Succession, M&A and growthThe riskiest phase of an acquisition begins after the signature.Succession processes rightly devote intensive discussion to valuation, structure, tax and warranties, because substantial amounts are at stake. What is regularly neglected is the first 24 months after completion.That is when three burdens converge. First, acquisition financing ties up cash flow and claims collateral. Second, an…
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The first question for an AI provider should be: where will our customer data go?
Read more: The first question for an AI provider should be: where will our customer data go?ESMA has made digital innovation a European supervisory priority from 2027 and explicitly includes AI. European supervisory authorities have also highlighted dependencies on external technology providers and cyber risks. These are European signals; they do not by themselves create a new rule for a Swiss leasing company. The operational questions are already immediate. Which documents…
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Data sovereignty becomes a management issue
Read more: Data sovereignty becomes a management issueThe most interesting AI question may soon no longer be which model we use. It may be where our data resides.A survey published on the Swiss SME Portal in July 2026 reveals a telling tension. Eighty nine per cent of respondents already use AI professionally. Fifty one per cent consider compliance with Swiss or European…
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The third AI pilot is often when a company discovers it needs a platform.
Read more: The third AI pilot is often when a company discovers it needs a platform.Citi describes Arc as infrastructure for agents across its businesses with common controls. AXA is developing a global AI hub, with an initial version in use across five entities. The examples raise an organisational question: who manages access, permissions, logs and quality once separate experiments become daily operations? A leasing company does not need to…
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Productivity instead of AI rhetoric
Read more: Productivity instead of AI rhetoricProductivity is not a topic for the future. It is a metric you can measure this month.The debate about technological transformation takes place on conference stages. The decision is made on the factory floor, in the warehouse and in the service vehicle.For a mid-sized company, what matters is not which technology is making headlines. What…
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Two No Votes Against Self-Restraint
Read more: Two No Votes Against Self-Restraint70.15 per cent voted No to the neutrality initiative. 72.52 per cent voted No to the food initiative. Not a single canton voted in favour. That is a remarkably clear result. The two proposals had little in common. And no one should claim that everyone who voted No did so for the same reasons. Still,…
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KYC involves more than collecting identity documents.
Read more: KYC involves more than collecting identity documents.Deutsche Bank has deployed an agentic AI solution for source-of-wealth work in its private banking centres in Singapore and Hong Kong. It researches approved sources, prepares documentation and identifies gaps. People review the assessment. A Swiss leasing company faces different questions, but much the same problem of fragmented evidence. An application, company register, identity checks…
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The right benchmark for Switzerland as a business location
Read more: The right benchmark for Switzerland as a business locationA location can look strong in a regional comparison and still come under pressure.In “Climbing higher”, McKinsey and Swiss AmCham note that around 80 per cent of the CEOs interviewed compare Switzerland with global locations. Those interviewed mainly represent the perspective of internationally active companies.I consider this finding relevant for Swiss SMEs as well. The…