New exhibition of UBS shows the contribution of the banks to the Swiss economy

Until recently, UBS company historian Christian Leitz had to disappoint his audience with lectures. « In the history of UBS there is no one who is symbolically for the bank, » he said. Quite different with competitor Credit Suisse: she around the pioneering spirit of her founder, the railway visionary and outstanding liberal politician Alfred Escher (1819–1882).

Since the UBS swallowed the tumbling Credit Suisse in March 2023, Christian Leitz has also been able to fall back on this figure. With the takeover, Escher has become part of the historical inventory of the only remaining large bank. Leitz can now meet the gripping biography of the pioneer – even if he is more interested in the structures and the long -term relationships in the company's history.

Banks as supports of industrialization

Both aspects come together in the new exhibition in the UBS headquarters in Zurich Bahnhofstrasse. It bears the title « Key moments – how banks shaped modern Switzerland » and traces how the financial institutions have financed pioneering infrastructure projects from the mid -19th century and accompanied the country's economic rise.

Because Switzerland as a mountainous, low -raw material country has come to considerable prosperity requires explanations. One of them is sufficiently powerful banks that were able to finance the rail network. In the exhibition, visitors can hear a speech by Alfred Escher on a contemporary phone that warned in 1849: Switzerland threatened to miss the railroad, maneuver them « in the hermitage » and risk that the railway lines are built around Switzerland.

The warning had an effect. Switzerland caught up in the following decades. In addition to the loan institution founded in 1856, the predecessor of today's UBS also contributed to this. The “Bank in Winterthur” was founded in 1862 and played an important role in railway construction.

Winterthurer Bank came to Zurich in the early 20th century. She bought a building on Bahnhofstrasse to get easier access to the stock exchange. At the same time, the expanding Basler Bankverein am Paradeplatz established a offshoot, now a symbol of the Swiss financial center. This achieved international importance, spared from the First World War.

That was also due to the « Bank in Winterthur » and the banking club. The two institutes should not only meet in Zurich at the end of the century. Bankverein und Bankgesellschaft – the latter was created by the merger of the « Bank in Winterthur » and the Toggenburger Bank – merged to the UBS in 1998. And since the emergency fusion of 2023, the new Mega-Bank has also been a Credit Suisse.

The focus of the exhibition is on the pioneering period between 1848 and 1920. A critical view of the financial crisis in 2008, when the state had to save UBS with CHF 60 billion, or the still fresh CS crisis is in vain. These major events roam CEO Sergio Ermotti and UBS President Colm Kelleher in an online video. There would still be potential for future exhibitions.

There were mergers

The banking business has always been shaped by upheavals. This is shown by the countless mergers in the 20th century. It is noteworthy that there were eight large banks in this country in 1920. That year, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) had defined for the first time, which distinguishes such an institute. The “intensity” of international integration was decisive. A hundred years later there is a single large bank in the country with UBS.

Will there be several soon or once none at all? The UBS historian Christian Leitz does not want to speculate about this. He follows the credo of his guild: Anyone who deals with the past is forecasts. Because these are often overtaken by reality. This was recently evident in the rapid and unthinkable downfall of Credit Suisse.

Exhibition “Key moments-How to see the modern Switzerland”.