The Economist mentions SFI Energy and Emission Trading Course

Economist.com refers to our new energy and emission trading course, part of the Geneva Executive Courses in Finance, in its monthly feature about News from the Schools.

"The emergence of markets for carbon-dioxide emissions, signalled by the European Union’s launch of an emissions-trading scheme in 2005, has resulted in a knock-on market for executive-education courses on the anticipated trade. ...Another notable emissions-trading programme is a four-day course at the Swiss Finance Institute"

The Swiss Finance Institute Energy and Emission Trading course was launched in January with a presentation by emissions trading expert Andrei Marcu.

Everybody needs good neighbours

Corriere del Ticino have published a letter by SFI Professor Giovanni Barone-Adesi about recent frictions between Germany and Liechtenstein.

Barone-Adesi comments that Germany's approach to obtaining bank account information from Liechtenstein will do nothing for neighbourly relations between the two countries.

Swiss banking in the balance

Weltwoche Economics Editor Claude Baumann discusses Switzerland's banking reputation in the wake of the UBS writedowns in a recent opinion piece.

Baumann is a frequent international commentator on Swiss banking. "Switzerland's banking tradition is about preserving and protecting wealth; it's not about doing deals," explained Baumann last year in the International Herald Tribune.

A pillar in Switzerland's banking pantheon, no one could have predicted that UBS was conducting its US investment banking activities with such imprudence as to lose 16 billion francs.

Baumann invites us to consider: Can a bank expect a second chance to deal with this kind of loss?

Financial Times on Swiss private banking prospects

Published: February 13 2008

Despite stormy headlines about US sub prime losses, the outlook for most of Switzerland's banks is bright; and even sunny for private banking.

So says Financial Times Haig Simonian in a piece published today in which he interviews Credit Suisse analyst Thomas Kalbermatten and Swiss Finance Institute Professor Giovanni Barone-Adesi (photo).

Net new money in private banking at Julius Baer grew by SFr12bn last year.

Barone-Adesi highlights deficiencies in risk management methods that allowed banks to over expand their US investment banking activities.

Permalink

Eric Sarasin interview about private banking

Executive Committee member of the Switzerland-Germany Chamber of Commerce, Eric Sarasin, discusses private banking in Switzerland in a recent interview published in the CH-D Chamber of Commerce journal.

Sarasin was special guest at the 20th Anniversary celebrations of the Swiss Finance Institute Executive Program on December 7th 2007 (photo). A graduate of the Executive Program, Sarasin is active in the promotion of Switzerland as a world-class competence centre in investment advice and asset management.

Visit the SFI photo-gallery of the 20th Anniversary celebrations.

Science to the rescue!

Radio Suisse Romande interview Jean-Pierre Danthine about the world's still panic-seized financial markets.

Must our financial markets be made simpler, or could sophisticated tools be developed to better manage the financial risks we face?

Quantitative finance, a discipline at the cross-roads between economics, mathematics and computer science, offers a powerful approach to understand financial markets and manage risk.

In the interview, Professor Danthine talks about Switzerland's moves to strengthen the quantitative skills of financial professionals.

Listen to the interview (French)

Deutsche Welle radio interview Darrell Duffie about UBS write-downs

Deutsche Welle radio will broadcast an interview of Visiting Professor Darrell Duffie (Stanford) today about the further write-downs at UBS.


Listen to interview (Deutsche Welle site)

Listen (Permalink)

SocGen employee causes market crash?

L'Hebdo interview SFI managing director Jean-Pierre Danthine is interviewed about whether financial products have become impossible to master.

With universities increasing their educational offerings in quantitative finance, Danthine believes there is hope that crises such as that seen at Societe Generale can be avoided in future.