According to Lusa, who cites the Swiss Federal Audit Office, there were five billion euros “forgotten” in 625 thousand Swiss pension funds, belonging to foreigners of various nationalities who worked there.

This was due to a change in Swiss law which, in 1985, introduced the second pillar of social security (Compulsory Professional Pension) which aims to complement workers' retirement.

But whenever there were changes in the workers' journey, whether to a new company, unemployment or return to their country of origin, it was necessary to transfer funds from one fund to another, which did not happen, with the amounts remaining in several boxes, without the workers claiming them.

Renata Santos, responsible for the company in Portugal, told Lusa that, since 2021, around 1,000 Portuguese emigrants have registered on the platform to try to find out if they had money in these boxes.

More than a third (around 35%) have already managed to obtain some amount, totalling one million euros recovered, he said.

The values ​​found vary between 150 euros and 20,000 euros, in individual cases, he said.

The company only charges for services when it discovers money to be recovered, without even having to know the amount which, according to Renata Santos, is higher than the 5,000 million euros initially advanced, and should be around 13,000 million euros.

Switzerland is the third country in the world where most Portuguese emigrate, after Spain and the United Kingdom. In 2021, this country once again became the one where the most Portuguese emigrants acquired nationality, according to the Emigration Report, released in January this year.

More than 255 thousand Portuguese live in Switzerland, forming the third largest foreign community, after Italians and Germans.