Swiss financial regulator FINMA has launched a formal probe into a multi-billion-dollar rogue trading scandal at big bank UBS.

FINMA’s deeper look into how alleged rogue trading could be carried out within the controls in place.

The probe will be co-conducted by the British regulator Financial Services Authority, which along with FINMA began an initial investigation in September.

UBS said it would cooperate fully and was still making internal changes in response to the two billion dollars allegedly lost by London trader Kweku Adoboli.

Earlier this week Adoboli entered a not guilty plea in London court.

more WRS coverage on banks

Rail ticket prices increased last December and are set to do so again this year.

The Public Transport Union said prices will increase an average 5.7 percent in December 2012, to cover increased cost to rail companies accessing track.

For a second class ticket that means the price will go up about 4 percent, and for first class—7 percent.  A half-fare card will be 10 francs more expensive.

The transport union said customers were only picking up part of the increased access fees with the 5.7 percent price rise.

The VCS transporter lobby said in order to cover the whole access increase, customers would have needed to pay an average 9 percent more.

In Lausanne a fight that broke out yesterday between two asylum seekers has left one dead.

Vaud cantonal police say the victim was a 33-year-old Egyptian man.

He died from his injuries sustained in the fight with an Algerian man.

No weapon was thought to have been used.

An asylum seeker who had lived with the men told 20 minutes they had a history of confrontations.

The head of the asylum centre said he had never witnessed problems between the two men, and says if he had, he would have addressed the issue.

It’s official. Last night was the coldest of the winter.

Alp Buffalora in the canton of Graubünden saw record temperatures for the season so far, at -27 degrees celcius.

In La Brévine, nicknamed the Siberia of Switzerland, the mercury was down at around -26.

The lowest temps in the lowlands were seen in the cantons of Jura and Solothurn, at -17.

Public TV forecasters warn the temperatures are likely to plunge a degree or two lower in the coming days.

The competition commission, or COMCO, has opened an inquiry into UBS and Credit Suisse on possible cartel agreements.

At least 10 foreign banks are also under investigation. COMCO says its looking into the possibility that institutions collaborated to influence the benchmark Libor and Tibor bank lending rates.

The Libor is the interbank lending rate out of London, and the Tibor is set in Tokyo.

COMCO says it has received information regarding potential unlawful agreements between banks.

It says derivative traders may have worked together to manipulate the difference between the ask price and bid price of derivatives.

Reports say that manipulation was based on these reference rates, meaning clients could have lost out.

Consequently Comco says market conditions relating to derivative products based on the Libor and Tibor may also have been manipulated.

Competition authorities in Britain and the U.S. have initiated similar investigations.

Private Bank Wegelin, based in the canton of St Gallen, is the first foreign bank to be indicted in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced yesterday that it has charged the Swiss based bank with helping U.S. taxpayers hide 1.2 billion dollars in order to avoid taxes on the generated income.

The U.S. Department of Justice claims that senior bank officials initiated a campaign to seek out dozens of American clients who were fleeing UBS in 2008 and 2009.

Prosecutors also claim Wegelin set up sham structures in Liechtenstein, Panama, Hong Kong and other places.

Neuchâtel  cantonal justice authorities say they will lead an investigation into alleged fraud and mismanagement involving  Xamax owner Bulat Chagaev.

Chagaev bought the football club last year.

The Chechen businessman is reportedly now on hunger strike at a Geneva prison following his arrest last month.

Chagaev was taken into custody just hours after the club was declared bankrupt and dropped out of the Swiss Super League.

Two members of Vaud cantonal police traveled to Paris last night to help investigate the disappearance of a Swiss mother and her 7-year-old daughter.

The pair disappeared last week, but money was withdrawn from the mother’s account a day later in Paris.

That has prompted continued investigation in Switzerland and France.

Vaud police say the woman is suffering from a stress related mental disorder.

A major German private equity company says it is considering buying all five refineries from troubled Swiss oil refiner Petroplus.

Goldsmith is already a shareholder in the Swiss company and has shown interest in snapping up refineries in Cressier in the canton of Neuchâtel, as well as in Britain, Belgium, Germany and France.

The company said it thinks the refineries are interesting and still sustainable despite market turbulence.

The refineries have seen a number of serious possible buyers with more than 40 for the lucrative British site and 10 or so for the Swiss site.

Petroplus was forced to shutter sites after lenders froze a one-billion-dollar credit line in the face of sluggish sales and demand.

The Zurich-based international Federation of Association Football (FIFA) sent a letter to the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) today wanting details on yesterday’s deadly violence in a match in Port Said.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter called EFA President Samir Zaher earlier, and later wrote that he awaited details on the circumstances of the riot, which killed more than 70 people.

Blatter called football a force for good that must not be abused by those who mean evil.

FIFA’s reaching out to Egyptian officials came just hours before Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri said he was dissolving the Egyptian FA’s board and referring its members for questioning by prosecutors about the violence.