The capital adequacy of the Swiss insurance sector under Solvency I has significantly improved for the fourth year in a row. The third field test of the risk-based Swiss Solvency Test (SST) finds that, on average, life insurers have sufficient capitalization, and health and non-life insurers have good capitalization. In the 2006 reporting year, premium income from non-life insurance increased, while premium income from life insurance decreased.

Within the scope of its reviewing activities, the Federal Office of Private Insurance FOPI notes that there have been similar developments in premium changes in supplementary health insurance as in the previous year. The supplementary health insurance for private and semi-private hospital rooms will rise by 0.6% on average in 2008. In accordance with the authorised proposed rates in the area of mass insurance business, the premiums will go up on average by 0.7% per insured person.

The Confederation has published a revised and updated translation of the Anti-Money Laundering Act. It is available immediately.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has updated its extensive evaluation of the Swiss financial sector within the scope of the Financial Sector Assessment Programme (FSAP) dating from 2001. The IMF delegation held intensive discussions with the regulatory and supervisory authorities, the Swiss National Bank and representatives from all segments of the financial sector. The results of the evaluation are now available as a report on the stability of the financial system in Switzerland. This report will be published with the standard annual surveillance report. Also, a series of background analyses on the financial sector will be published in the next few days. By taking part in the FSAP, Switzerland is acknowledging its responsibility as a highly integrated, global financial centre. It thereby reinforces its commitment to strengthen financial stability at the national and international levels.

With the Swiss Solvency Test (SST) and the specification of the new supervision law the Federal Office of Private Insurance FOPI has reached an important stage on the path to a modern system of supervision. The next move will be to consolidate the SST, qualitative supervision which has to be further developed and traditional instruments to become integrated supervisory architecture, which can also be combined and used in an agile and transparent way. In the annual media conference, the new FOPI Director Monica Mächler presented the new concept and outlined the challenges which supervision has to cope with in the next few years.