Swiss voters reject total overhaul of monetary system

Voters decided on Sunday that Switzerland should not become the world's first country to wrest control from its banks in a sweeping monetary reform.In a referendum, 75.7% of the ballots cast rejected the proposal to change the way banks lend money.Proponents of the so-called Sovereign Money Initiative wanted to reform the country's monetary system to protect the economy from a future financial crisis.According to the concept, developed by economists in Germany and Switzerland, banks would have no longer been able to lend excessively, as the central bank would have become the only institution that could create money.Banks could only issue loans if they had acquired an equivalent sum from the central bank, other lenders or client deposits.The proponents faced broad opposition from all major parties, as well as from companies and banks, which argued that the new system would have damaged the credit system.Heinz Karrer, head of the national business federation Economiesuisse, said on Sunday that the monetary reform would have been "extremely damaging" and would have set Switzerland apart from the global economy."A very, very big majority of the population did not want to take the plunge with this experiment," Karrer told public broadcaster SRF.A representative of the proponents, Reinhold Harringer, acknowledged that his group had presented voters with a complicated and new topic."The people did not want it now, but I assume that the debate about the stability of the financial system will definitely continue," the former tax official told SRF.Several Swiss referenda on radical plans have tested public opinion and drawn international attention in the past few years, but they were ultimately rejected at the ballots.Since 2017, Swiss voters have said no to banning market speculation on agricultural and food products, to introducing an unconditional basic income, and to abolishing viewer fees and tax funding for public broadcasting.In a separate referendum on Sunday, 72.9% of the voters backed a new gambling law that will prevent foreign online casinos from offering their services in Switzerland.The government has argued that the new rules ensure that gambling companies pay taxes in Switzerland that can be used for the common good.