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It's a Miss for the Swiss Finance Museum

28 Apr 2023 by Amby

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price-icon $11 city-icon Zurich country-icon Switzerland location-icon The Swiss Finance Museum

Given Switzerland has something of a reputation around its banking industry I expected the Swiss Finance Museum to be cool. My friend Rory was in town and is into that kind of thing so I thought this could be a good tourist activity.

However, we were not impressed with this low-energy museum, and don’t really recommend it to my readers unless they are running out of other things to do.

This is what the museum looks like. This is what the museum looks like.

The museum entrance is 10 CHF, a pretty good price for a Swiss museum.

It’s about an 8 minute walk from the Hardbrucke train station, and the walk is along a busy road. I can’t really be annoyed with them for that but that’s how our day started.

The museum is pretty small, occupying one large room. The exhibits start with this 8-minute long audio presentation of Swiss financial history.

Different sections lit up depending on who was talking during the audio intro. Different sections lit up depending on who was talking during the audio intro.

While some parts were entertaining, it was surprising how long it went on, and because the only thing separating it from the rest of the museum room is small barrier, the audio can be heard throughout the museum when other guests come in.

The museum has a few interesting historic stock certificates on display, and the first half of the room is dedicated to the history of trade more broadly.

One of the historic stock certificates at the museum. One of the historic stock certificates at the museum.

The second half of the museum is more modern history of Swiss finance (although displays still talked about Credit Suisse despite the bank collapsing a couple weeks earlier).

There were a couple interactive exhibits, one was a table where you could watch a banker explain different aspects of finance, which was somewhat interesting, if a bit long-winded.

You could sit down and have this guy explain the dfference between stocks and bonds. You could sit down and have this guy explain the dfference between stocks and bonds.

The other was this “game” where you simulate trading stocks over the course of an accelerated “day.” This game is really not for beginners and Rory and I were completely lost when we just dove in without going through the tutorial. After doing the tutorial we understood what we had to do (although we still lost our fake money at the end of the game.)

It was sort of cool to see the tools traders might use during their work, but this is not the kind of leisurely interactive exhibit you might expect at a museum.

The 'game' tutorial. The 'game' tutorial.

So why am I down on the Swiss Finance Museum?

1. The museum relied too much on text displays to convey information 2. There were not enough interactive exhibits 3. There were not enough historic artifacts or other interesting items to look at or touch 4. The museum was small and interior design seemed dated

Giant picture + wall of text Giant picture + wall of text

The museum is sponsored in part by SIX Group, which operates the infrastructure for all financial centers in Switzerland.

I would expect a multi-billion dollar industry that claims ten percent of the Swiss workforce to try a little harder to impress the people going to the only finance museum in Switzerland.

A comparatively small investment in exhibit upgrades and interior design could really make this museum special and exciting. Until then, it’s a miss for me.

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