Swiss Banker Touted to Run Right-Wing Party

Thomas Matter is among the front-runners to lead Switzerland's right-wing People's Party, according to Swiss daily «Tages-Anzeiger» (behind paywall, in German) on Tuesday. The 53-year-old Swiss banker turned to politics nearly ten years ago. In 2014, he inherited the lower-house seat vacated by Christoph Blocher, the party's long-standing figurehead.

 

The People's Party has long been fiercely protective of the Swiss banking industry: it has opposed adopting agreements to swap data on tax dodgers and cheats, and wants to enshrine banking secrecy domestically. It has also launched several unsuccessful monetary policy campaigns, including one to redistribute the central bank's stockpile of gold.

 

Ueli Maurer, Switzerland's finance minister, is a member of the People's Party. He has managed to generate a budget surplus every year, while warning that state spending needs to be kept under control because times will get harder again. 

 

Matter, who is currently part of the People's Party leadership as head of finance, founded Swissfirst, a bank, in 1994. The Swiss lender merged in 2005 with rival Bank am Bellevue. Matter was later accused of favoring some investors over others, but a criminal investigation into the allegations found no wrong-doing and was quietly buried in 2008.

 

 

Eight years ago, the banker tried again with Helvetische Bank, a corporate finance and wealth manager in Zurich. The bank turned profitable in 2015, and has since added ex-UBS CEO Marcel Rohner to its board.

 

Whether Matter wants the job is unclear from the «Tages-Anzeiger» report. Should he stand for election, it will officially be up to party members to vote him in – but Blocher, its 79-year-old doyen, remains overwhelmingly influential on its strategy and major people decisions.