A total of €1 million has been recovered by Portuguese emigrants in Switzerland.
Besides,1,000 Portuguese nationals have been registered on Switzerland’s platform Swiss Pension Now (SPNow), which helps them find out if they have money in their boxes.
Renata Santos, responsible for the company in Portugal, told Lusa that more than a third or about 35 per cent, have managed to obtain some amount, totalling €1 million, stressing that the values found differ between €150 and €20,000
According to the Swiss Federal Financial Control body, around €5 billion Swiss francs were distributed in over 625,000 intact accounts relating to the second Pillar reforms, waiting for their owners to claim them.
A large number of Portuguese emigrants who worked in Swiss territory didn’t know about the money belonging to them.
This must have been a result of changes in Swiss law; in 1985, the pillar of social security, known as Compulsory Professional Pension, aimed to complement workers’ retirement.
However, a report from Portugal News notes that whenever there were changes in the employees’ journey, such as unemployment, return to their origin countries or working in a new company, it was necessary to transfer funds, which didn’t happen.
The amounts of money remained in several boxes and were not claimed by the workers.
The Swiss Pension Now platform was created in 2021 to inform the population of ex-migrants in Switzerland about the possibility that they still have retirement funds to receive without knowing it.
Miguel Farranem, last year, said that considering the high number of Portuguese who emigrated to Switzerland and all workers who have migrated since the implementation of the legislation, the value of the Portuguese is lost.
We have already found 500 euros, other accounts with 7 thousand, but all the funds were significant for the context of the owners and capable of making a difference.
According to him, the company only charges for services when it discovers money to be recovered, without knowing the amount, stressing that last year’s success reached 60 per cent.
After Spain and the United Kingdom, Switzerland is the third country in the world to which most Portuguese emigrate. Based on the statistics provided by the government of Switzerland, 260,000 nationals are living in Switzerland.
At the same time, 5,379 Swiss nationals were living in Portugal by the end of 2021.
