Swiss bank secrecy emerges from 2009 with holes

[discocrisco01]

Source: AFP

GENEVA (AFP) - Switzerland's finance minister acknowledges that he had a rough time this year after the Swiss bowed to international pressure on banking secrecy under the onslaught of US lawsuits and a crackdown on tax evasion.

Yet, the Swiss banking industry insists that it was stirred rather than shaken by a tumultuous year that holed their sacrosanct secrecy, threatened to sap billions from their vaults and left their battered flagship bank UBS (Virt-X: UBSN.VX - news) wheezing.


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"You could describe it as a challenging year," James Nason, a spokesman for the Swiss Bankers Association, told AFP.

"Privacy remains the default setting," he insisted nonetheless, as the chairman of the association, private banker Patrick Odier, toyed with "Rubik" -- the buzzword for plans to anonymously retain tax on the savings revenues of foreign clients and discourage undeclared assets.


Read more: http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/27122009/323/swiss-bank-secrecy-emerges-2009-holes.html

[MercutioATC]

1. Anybody who trusts a Swiss bank with anonymity is an idiot...and Swiss banks will suffer.

They brought this on themselves by complying with U.S. demands.


"Numbered" Swiss accounts are obviously no longer anonymous to investigators.