Bank Cler is a

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS) ...

-based

Swiss bank Banking in Switzerland dates to the early eighteenth century through Switzerland's merchant trade and has, over the centuries, grown into a complex, regulated, and international industry. Banking is seen as emblematic of Switzerland, along wit ...

founded in 1927. The bank's main area of activity is

retail banking Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking. Banking ser ...

for private individuals and small and medium-sized companies. Until it became a wholly owned subsidiary of

Basler Kantonalbank Basler Kantonalbank (Basel Cantonal Bank) is a Swiss cantonal bank that is one of the 24 cantonal banks serving Switzerland's 26 cantons. Founded in 1899, in 2019 Basler Kantonalbank had 15 branches with 842 employees; the total assets of the b ...

in 2019 the bank's shares were listed on the

SIX Swiss Exchange SIX Swiss Exchange (formerly SWX Swiss Exchange), based in Zurich, is Switzerland's principal stock exchange (the other being Berne eXchange). SIX Swiss Exchange also trades other securities such as Swiss government bonds and derivatives such as ...

History

Today's Bank Cler was founded on 30 October 1927 by the Association of Swiss Consumers (today

Coop Coop, COOP, Co-op, or ''variation'', most often refers to: * A chicken coop or other enclosure * Cooperative or co-operative ("co-op"), an association of persons who cooperate for their mutual social, economic, and cultural benefit ** Housing c ...

) together with the

Swiss Federation of Trade Unions The Swiss Trade Union Federation (, SGB; ; , USS) is the largest national trade union center in Switzerland. History The federation was founded in 1880 and represents 361,000 members in its affiliated unions (2015). The SGB has close ties with ...

as a cooperative central bank - ''Genossenschaftliche Zentralbank'' (French: ''Banque Centrale Coopérative''; Italian: ''Banca Centrale Cooperativa''). In 1970, the delegates' meeting of the members of the cooperative decided to transform the company into a stock corporation. In 1995 the bank's name was changed to Coop Bank. On 20 December 1999, the

purchased a controlling stake in the bank, and in 2001, the name was changed to Bank Coop. As of the end of 2009, the Basler Kantonalbank held a 57.6% share of the bank's stock; a further 10.4% was held by the former parent company - Coop, 5.1% by Swiss trade union associations and 1.1% by the bank in its trading portfolio and in financial investments. The rest of the stock was in free float. In March 2017, Coop sold its remaining shares to the Basler Kantonalbank. On 20 May 2017, the institution undertook a comprehensive rebranding and became Bank Cler (''Banque Cler''; ''Banca Cler''), Romansh for "transparent, simple, clear". On 20 June 2018, the Basler Kantonalbank announced that it wanted to take over 100% of Bank Cler. In October 2018, Cler was certified as climate neutral. In November 2018, SIX approved the delisting of the bank's shares. Payment transactions were outsourced to

Swisscom Swisscom AG is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Its headquarters are located in Ittigen near Bern. The Swiss government owns 51.0 percent of Swisscom AG. According to its own published data, Swisscom holds a market share o ...

as of September 2019.

Criticism of the former bank Coop

Incorrect sending of customer statements

In 2013 some customers annual statements were sent to incorrect addresses due to a program error. Due to errors in the introduction of a new bank statement format, statements from 43,000 customers were enclosed with other addressees, resultantly 31,000 customers received annual statements for both themselves and for other people. In June 2014, Bank Coop announced that an independent investigation undertaken by

Deloitte Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of professio ...

concluded that a chain of unfavourable circumstances and inadequate controls led to the error.

Price manipulation

In October 2014, Bank Coop was reprimanded by the

Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) is the Swiss government body responsible for financial regulation. This includes the supervision of banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges and securities dealers, as well as other fi ...

(FINMA) for manipulating the price of its own bearer shares between 2009 and 2013. FINMA uncovered "substantial support purchases" by Bank Coop to counteract a decline in the bank's share price. In doing so, the bank seriously violated the supervisory prohibition of

market manipulation In economics and finance, market manipulation is a type of market abuse where there is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market; the most blatant of cases involve creating false or misleading appearan ...

and its guarantee as well as its organisational obligations. FINMA issued a three-year professional ban against the former CEO, Andreas Waespi, who left the bank at the beginning of August 2014.''Bank Coop manipulierte eigenen Kurs – Berufsverbot für Ex-CEO.''

Tages-Anzeiger ''Tages-Anzeiger'' (), also abbreviated ''Tagi'' or ''TA'', is a Swiss German-language national daily newspaper published in Zurich, Switzerland. History and profile The paper was first published under the name ''Tages-Anzeiger für Stadt un ...

, 29 October 2014.

References

External links