The History of the Swiss Financial Center

The Swiss Finance Museum offers visitors a multimedia exhibition that illustrates not only the origins of our economic system, but also the great importance the financial market and its infrastructure have for our daily lives. The spotlight is on stock exchange trading, the capital market, financial instruments, payment transactions and technical objects, which demonstrate the financial industry's exemplary innovative strength.

The world's most distinguished collection of historical securities, made available by the "Stiftung Sammlung historischer Wertpapiere" (Foundation Collection of Historical Securities), is an integral part of the museum. From August 2022, the Finance Museum will be showing a new highlight featuring the French East India Company of 1665.

As the first and only finance museum in the banking country of Switzerland, the Zurich location has been the new reference site for the history and functioning of the financial industry and the Swiss financial centre since June 2017.

Over the past 20 years, the face of Swiss banks has changed significantly. Where once the personal contact in the branch office used to be a priority, banking has now arrived on the smartphone. 

Which leads to several questions: How do we pay, save and invest - today and in the future? Which institutions do we trust?

The exhibition shows the origins of the Swiss banking system up until the Swiss financial center takes shape, and contrasts them with the current, digital trends in banking: from counters to apps. 

A selection of original historical securities will be used to showcase the types of Swiss banks, as well as global tech companies that are steadily driving digitization in the financial sector.