Banking in Switzerland

in the 18th century. Bank secrecy in the Swiss region can be traced That major step beyond the prior enforcement of banking secrecy under civil law resulted from several developments of the early 1930s, including the introduction in the same legislation of an embryonic form of banking supervision, which Swiss bankers argued could endanger secrecy; evolving jurisprudence of the Federal Supreme Court; and a 1932 campaign against tax evasion in France led by Édouard Herriot's government, Alleged wealthy French tax evaders included military generals and Catholic bishops. An additional provision, Article 47(b), was drafted before its ratification to protect Jewish assets from the Nazi party. helps to store gold in underground bunkers. During World War II, Switzerland remained diplomatically neutral but its economy and financial system served the Axis powers by storing gold and cash balances in underground vaults, Adolf Hitler maintained an account at the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) estimated at . After the United States formally asked the bank to transfer the money in the 1990s, UBS wired US$400 to 700 million worth of Reichsmarks to U.S. authorities. The Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) and Credit Suisse, did likewise. World War II and beyond After the end of World War II, Switzerland and its financial system benefited greatly from having remained unharmed while all the neighbouring economies were devastated, but had to face the reputational damage from its support to the Axis powers, which also led to threats to banking secrecy as the Allied victors sought to expropriate Nazi assets held under Swiss custody. By and large, the Swiss banking sector was able to successfully deflect the threat to its secrecy practices, not least as it supported France and the United Kingdom with significant lending. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, numerous international proposals for bank secrecy rollbacks were made by foreign states with little success. On December 3, 2008, the Federal Assembly increased the prison sentence for violations of banking secrecy from a maximum of six months to five years. In late 2008, after an international, multi-state investigation into Switzerland's role in U.S. tax evasion, UBS entered into a limited, deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the U.S. Department of Justice. The agreement initiated the landmark Birkenfeld Disclosure of information on more than 4,000 clients. In another step toward loosening banking secrecy, Switzerland signed the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), after rejecting it twice in parliament. If a client does not consent to having their information shared with the IRS, Swiss law prohibits the disclosure. In March 2015, the Swiss government entered into bilateral "Rubik Agreements" with Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom allowing foreign holders of Swiss bank accounts to retain their anonymity in exchange for paying predetermined back taxes. Switzerland adopted the International Convention on the Automatic Exchange of Banking Information (AEOI) in 2017, agreeing to automatically release limited financial information to certain countries for the sole purpose of tax auditing. This agreement includes the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) which obliges Swiss banks to automatically send foreign tax authorities the client's name, address, domicile, tax number, date of birth, account number, account balance at years end, and the gross investment income. The CRS does not, however, override the Swiss Banking Law of 1934, so the client's expenses (withdrawals) and investments are not disclosed. In December 2017, the Swiss parliament launched a standing initiative and expressed an interest in formally embedding banking secrecy within the Swiss Constitution, making it a federally-protected constitutional right. In January 2018, a U.S. district court ruled that Swiss bankers "[have] nothing to do with the choice that an American taxpayer makes to not declare offshore assets", later clarifying they should not be seen as facilitating tax evasion but rather provide a legal service that is made illegal by the client. The Swiss Justice Ministry announced in March 2018 that disclosure of client information in a pending court case involving a Swiss bank is subject to federal espionage and extortion charges in addition to charges relating to banking secrecy laws. After a serious crisis, on 19 March 2023, following negotiations with the Swiss government, UBS announced its intent to acquire Credit Suisse for $3.25 billion (CHF 3 billion) in order to prevent the bank's collapse. UBS completed the acquisition in June 2023. == Banking and the Swiss economy==

in Basel Switzerland is a prosperous nation with a per capita gross domestic product higher than that of most Western European nations. The value of the Swiss franc (CHF) has been relatively stable compared with that of many others. Swiss neutrality and national sovereignty, long recognized by foreign nations, have fostered a stable environment for the banking sector to develop and thrive. Switzerland maintained neutrality through both World Wars, is not a member of the European Union or NATO, and did not join the United Nations until 2002. The Bank of International Settlements (BIS), an organization that facilitates cooperation among the world's central banks, is headquartered in Basel. Founded in 1930, the BIS chose to locate in Switzerland because of the country's neutrality, which was important to the organization founded by countries that had been enemies in World War I. Banking has played a dominant role in the Swiss economy for two centuries. Origin of funds Most of the wealth from overseas in Switzerland originates in Germany, France and Saudi Arabia (2018). According to the Swiss Bankers Association in 2022, the amount held by Russian clients in Swiss banks is between CHF150 and CHF200 billion ($160 and $214 billion). The holding of the Rothschilds assets is located in Zurich, said by insiders to be worth "trillions" according to The Independent (UK) journal and others. ==Regulation==

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) is a public law institution that supervises most banking-related activities as well as securities markets and investment funds. Regulatory authority is derived from the Swiss Financial Market Supervision Act (FINMASA) and Article 98 of the Swiss Federal Constitution. The office of the Swiss Banking Ombudsman, founded in 1993, is sponsored by the Swiss Banking Ombudsman Foundation, which was established by the Swiss Bankers Association. The ombudsman's services, which are offered free of charge, include mediation and assistance to persons searching for dormant assets. The ombudsman handles about 1,500 complaints raised against banks yearly. Generally speaking, lawyers will not work against the banks and regulators are "too weak" to act in case of a problem, according to the Financial Times of London. Automatic exchange of tax information In February 2013, the Swiss Federal Council allowed the signing of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) with the US. These agreements force all Swiss banks to inform the Internal Revenue Service of undeclared, offshore accounts. These new regulations are applicable from 2014, and in turn assure Swiss banks of continued operations within the US. In July 2019, the US Senate approved the Double Taxation Treaty (DTA) with Switzerland, which had already been accepted by the Swiss parliament in 2010. The new agreement, applicable to accounts from September 23, 1999, onward, amends the tax treaty of 1996 and regulates requests for information on financial accounts by US authorities, as well as exemptions for retirement savings by US persons. Starting in 2019, Switzerland began to share (with the country of origin or residence) the details of 3.1 million bank accounts held by foreigners, as part of the agreed automatic exchange of information. Swiss banks, insurance companies and trusts have a legal obligation to comply but charitable Swiss foundations are so far exempt. As of 2019, Switzerland received financial data from 75 countries and shared data with 63 (over 100 countries starting in 2023) representing 3.6 million accounts as of 2023. Around 9000 banks, insurers, trusts and other financial institutions in Switzerland provide this information to the Swiss authorities. Loopholes Swiss banks are obliged to reject or terminate business relationships if there are doubts about the real identity of the owner of the account. Swiss banks have a legal obligation to record the ultimate beneficial owners of all assets they handle worldwide, but doing so accurately can be tricky in jurisdictions where it is easy for third parties to mask who the owners are. Thus, loopholes exist through the use of shell companies, trust funds, and proxy directors signing the paperwork without owning the assets. Similarly, the use of a "straw man" or a family member is a way also to hide the true beneficial ownership in some cases. Loopholes exist also with people with multiple nationalities who only declare one citizenship to the authorities for the purpose of tax reporting. Another loophole consists (for US citizens) in setting up shell companies abroad and registering them with the IRS as "offshore financial institutions". The IRS issues the entities unique Global Intermediary Identification Numbers, or GIINs, which relieve the banks of FATCA's requirement to investigate whether they're held by Americans. This loophole was allegedly used by billionaire Robert Brockman to avoid taxation. The banking systems of Switzerland and Liechtenstein have close ties. Liechtenstein's trust companies are clients of Swiss banks. Liechtenstein does not require trust companies to identify people with signatory powers, and does not prosecute tax evasion or tax fraud (2000). To improve the tracking down and freezing of assets, Swiss NGO Public Eye has called for a national task force, a register of the beneficial owners of front companies and a reporting obligation for lawyers. The Tax Justice Network and FATF As of 2022, the Swiss government is following up on some of those recommendations. In addition, Transparency International is demanding that lawyers, financial advisors plus real estate and art transactions be subject to the same exacting anti-money laundering measures as banks. However, in 2025, the Swiss parliament has pushed back on many of these reforms on grounds of "competitiveness" for the Swiss banking sector. Enabling industry The "enabling industry" refers to lawyers, fiduciaries, notaries, and real estate agents who assist criminals in investing or hiding their ill-gotten wealth. Their activity is not covered by the Swiss Anti-Money Laundering Act as long as they are only advising clients to place money in a particular financial institution or country. Furthermore, lawyers in Switzerland can refuse to disclose almost anything to the authorities about their clients. Under the Swiss Anti-Money Laundering Act, banks must report suspicious clients and transactions to the authorities. Lawyers and other advisors have no such obligation if they simply create trusts and other constructs rather than handle assets. According to the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland in 2017, official "suspicious activity reports" reached nearly 4,700 (worth $16.2 billion) up from 2,909 reported cases in 2016. Suspicious activity reports increased to 21,000 in 2025. The Swiss Financial Services Act of 2020 (FinSA) requires financial advisers to obtain a licence (950 firms advising on nearly $200 billion have been approved by FINMA). The law also requires any "retrocession" paid by the bank to the advisor to be disclosed publicly. For example, in 2022, a Russian oligarch reportedly handed his Swiss company over to his wife to avoid the sanctions against Russia. Swiss authorities can freeze assets if the law requires them to. However, seizing assets is only permitted in cases involving crime or for destituted potentates. At least a dozen destitute autocrats have had their assets frozen or seized by the Swiss government over the years. The amounts can be counted in billions of dollars. According to the Swiss media, some of the amounts have not yet been restituted to the people of the countries of origin to whom it properly belongs. ==Protections==

Breaches of banking secrecy laws in Switzerland are automatically processed pursuant to Article 47 of the Banking Law of 1934: those who disclose client information are subject to a maximum of five years' imprisonment and 250,000 francs (€215,000 or US$250,000) in fines. After the 2008 financial crisis, the Swiss Parliament initiated a series of international tax treaties that rolled back banking secrecy protections for foreign clients in response to pressure from the European Union, United States, and United Kingdom. ==Major banks==

, there are more than 400 securities dealers and banking institutions in Switzerland, ranging from the "Two Big Banks" down to small banks serving the needs of a single community or a few special clients. The largest and second largest Swiss banks are UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse Group AG, respectively. They account for over 50% of all deposits in Switzerland; each has extensive branch networks throughout the country and most international centers. Due to their size and complexity, UBS and Credit Suisse are subject to an extra degree of supervision from the Federal Banking Commission. only one in five Swiss people banks with either UBS or Credit Suisse, but most Swiss prefer one or the other. Credit Suisse was historically the bank of Protestant Zürich; UBS originated in Catholic Basel, near France. Swiss National Bank of Switzerland, the Swiss National Bank (SNB), is headquartered in Bern. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) serves as the country's central bank. Founded by the Federal Act on the Swiss National Bank (16 January 1906), it began conducting business on 20 June 1907. Its shares are publicly traded, and are held by the cantons, cantonal banks, and individual investors; the federal government does not hold any shares. Although a central bank often has regulatory authority over the country's banking system, the SNB does not; regulation is solely the role of the Federal Banking Commission. Raiffeisen Banks "assumes the role of central bank" in providing treasury services, and is the third largest group consisting of 328 banks in 2011, 390 in 2012 with 1,155 branches. According to the bank in 2012 non-U.S. businesses of Wegelin & Co, the oldest Swiss bank, would be bought by the Raiffeisen group. The group has 3 million plus clients within Switzerland. UBS UBS Group AG came into existence in June 1998, when Union Bank of Switzerland, founded in 1862, and Swiss Bank Corporation, founded in 1872, merged. Headquartered in Zürich and Basel, it is Switzerland's largest bank. Credit Suisse Credit Suisse Group was the second-largest Swiss bank. Based in Zürich and founded in 1856, Credit Suisse offers private banking, investment banking and asset management services. The asset management services were sold to Aberdeen Asset Management during the 2008 financial crisis. Credit Suisse collapsed in 2023 and it was acquired by UBS the same year. Private banks The term private bank refers to a bank that offers private banking services and in its legal form is a partnership. The first private banks were created in St. Gallen in the mid-18th century and in Geneva in the late 18th century as partnerships, and some are still in the hands of the original families such as Hottinger and Mirabaud. Together the cantonal banks account for about 30% of the banking sector in Switzerland, with a network of over 800 branches and 16 000 employees in Switzerland. In 2014 consolidated total assets of all cantonal banks accounted around 500 bln CHF, which is comparable with those of one the "Big Banks", UBS and Credit Suisse. The largest cantonal bank, the Zurich Cantonal Bank, has approximately 5 000 employees had a 2005 net income of CHF810 million. ==Controversies==

World War II In 1996 and 1997, a series of class action lawsuits were filed in several United States federal courts against Swiss banks and other Swiss entities, alleging that financial institutions in Switzerland collaborated with and aided the Nazi Regime by knowingly retaining and concealing assets of Holocaust victims, and by accepting and laundering illegally obtained Nazi loot and profits of slave labor. The resulting Volcker Commission and agreement brokered therefrom resulted in a $1.25 billion restitution to Holocaust victims. Despite an international push to meaningfully roll back banking secrecy laws in the country, Swiss political forces have minimized and reverted many of the proposed rollbacks. Swiss bankers who maintain offices exclusively in Switzerland are shielded from a foreign state's lawsuits, extradition requests, and criminal charges, as long as they remain within the country's legal jurisdiction. Switzerland's main lingual hubs, Geneva (for French), Lugano (for Italian), and Zürich (for German) service the different geographical markets. Secrecy laws have been violated by four people since 1934: Christoph Meili (1997), Bradley Birkenfeld (2007), Rudolf Elmer (2011), and Hervé Falciani (2014). As of 2015, Swiss banking secrecy was considered "dead" because of FATCA, but according to the Tax Justice Network in 2018, these schemes are "full of loopholes and shortcomings" which can still be exploited by lawyers to hide the assets of their clients. Additionally, some autocratic or developing countries have no automatic exchange of tax information with Switzerland. In 2022, the Helsinki Commission of the U.S. Congress stated: Freedom of the press Since leaking financial data is a criminal offense in Switzerland (even if it is in the public interest) punishable with up to five years in jail, Swiss media argued in February 2022 that the banking secrecy law runs contrary to freedom of speech and freedom of the press in some cases. In 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council asked for a better protection of journalists and whistleblowers in this regard. Bank vaults and bunkers A handful of larger Swiss banks operate undisclosed or otherwise secretive bank vaults, storage facilities or underground bunkers for gold bars, diamonds, or other valuable physical assets. Most of these underground bunkers are located near or at the foothills of the mountainous regions of the Swiss Alps. These facilities are not subject to the same banking regulations as banks in Switzerland and do not have to report holdings to regulatory agencies. The Swiss defense department estimates that of the ten former military bunkers available for sale, six of them were sold to Swiss banks to house assets during the 1980s and 1990s. Storage in these underground bunkers and bank vaults is typically reserved for clients who pass a multi-stage security clearance. or "Cello" However, to open this type of account in Switzerland, clients must pass a multi-stage clearance procedure and prove to the bank the lawful origins of their assets. Connection to illegal activities Swiss banks have served as safe havens for the wealth of dictators, despots, mobsters, arms dealers, corrupt officials, and tax cheats of all kinds. Historically, mobster Meyer Lansky, Vatican-linked banker Licio Gelli of the lodge "P2" in Italy, and Mexican president Carlos Salinas's family amongst others, have reportedly used Swiss banks to launder money over the years. Swiss banks have been commonly identified as holding ill-gotten Nazi gold. The Swiss National Bank, the largest gold distribution centre in continental Europe before the war, was the logical venue through which Nazi Germany could dispose of its gold. Time magazine reported that throughout 1981 and 1982, the Israelis reportedly set up Swiss bank accounts to handle the financial end of the annual multi-million dollars arms deals between Iran and Israel during the Iran–Iraq War. According to the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's office and media, during the 1990s and early 2000s Al Qaeda members had accounts at Swiss banks, including at UBS. Switzerland finally released a total of $683 million in Marcos funds to the Philippines Treasury in 2004. Mark Pieth, a Swiss professor of criminal law, said Mobutu of Zaire had stolen US$30 billion over his 30 years in power but much of it he used to oil the wheels of power and pay off political and military allies. Billions were hidden in Swiss bank accounts illegally. According to Haitian authorities, Jean Claude Duvalier had nearly $300 million of Haitian people's money hidden in Swiss bank accounts. Then-Nigerian President Sani Abacha is said to have stolen over a billion dollars in the 90's from his country, some of it hidden in Swiss bank accounts. In 2013, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit news organization, obtained records of companies and trusts created by two offshore companies. These included information on at least 23 companies linked to an alleged $230 million tax fraud in Russia, a case that was being investigated by Sergei Magnitsky. The ICIJ investigation also revealed that the husband of one of the Russian tax officials deposited millions in a Swiss bank account set up by one of the offshore companies. Over the past 20 years, Switzerland has returned about $2 billion of ill-gotten money in at least ten cases, including to Tunisia, Egypt, Brazil, Nigeria, Malaysia and Uzbekistan (2022). Swiss bank accounts were utilised by the perpetrators of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad corruption and money laundering scandal. More recent studies show that Credit Suisse alone held assets worth $100 billion over several decades which were linked to corruption and bribery to drug and human trafficking for more than 30,000 clients. Apart from the 2022 "Suisse secrets" revelations, Credit Suisse had several other cases of scandals reported by the media over the last decades. In 2018, London-based Tax Justice Network ranks Switzerland's banking sector as the "most corrupt" in the world due to a large offshore banking industry and very strict secrecy laws. The ranking attempts to measure how much assistance the country's legal systems provide to money laundering, and to protecting corruptly obtained wealth. As of 2019, key criminal probes involving Swiss banks were the Petrobras bribery case, the Mozambique "tuna bonds", Credit Suisse "spygate" affair, Raiffeisen insider trading and UBS tax evasion in France. In 2021, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation reported that the Zürich police are investigating CHF 9 billion from Venezuela that has been received by 30 Swiss banks. A Swiss bank account was used to bribe a Venezuelan minister. Other major cases involving the Credit Suisse money laundering case for drug-traffickers in Bulgaria, Falcon Bank, 1MBD, Glencore, SICPA, SBM Offshore, PKB, J. Safra Sarasin, Cramer Bank and Lombard Odier Bank. In 2021, Swiss firm Allied Finance Trust AG and five Swiss bankers were charged with tax fraud conspiracy in New York. In 2021, UBS was criminally convicted by an appeals court in France for money laundering the proceeds of tax evasion by French citizens and fined €1.8 billion. In 2023, Switzerland returned $138 million to Taiwan in connection with a corruption scandal relating to the sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991. Tax evasion retain the country's strictest, most expansive, and unalienable banking secrecy protections as it pertains to taxation. Switzerland has been ranked among the top three tax havens in the world every single year since the 2008 financial crisis, most recently in 2018. Money placed in tax havens, by definition, evades taxation and therefore diminishes tax revenues in the government's budget of the country of origin to whom it properly belongs, substantially, including for development purposes. Background According to the 2018 Financial Secrecy Index, Switzerland's banking secrecy laws have rendered it a premier tax haven since the 1900s. Akin to the distinction between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion in the U.S., the non-reporting of income is only a civil offense in Switzerland while tax fraud is a financial crime. On top of this, Switzerland's banking secrecy laws prohibit the disclosure of client information under a variety of federal, cantonal, and civil policies. While citizens of Switzerland retain the full force of banking secrecy protections, foreign clients are afforded some of the most stringent bank–client confidentiality protections in the world. After the Banking Law of 1934 was passed, Swiss bankers traveled across Europe to advertise the country's banking secrecy during World War II. Starting in 2022, fines on Swiss banks abroad will be tax deductible (unless crime is involved). In recent years, Swiss banks have also been fined by various international regulators billions of dollars for FOREX and LIBOR rates manipulations. == In popular culture ==

Banking in Switzerland, in particular Swiss banking secrecy practices, has been detailed in global popular culture to varying degrees of accuracy. According to official statements from the Swiss National Film Archives, inaccurate or exaggerated portrayals negatively impact Switzerland by reducing bankers to unflattering "caricatures" that are "ever disposed to accept funds from questionable sources". In 2014, Sindy Schmiegel, a spokeswoman for the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA), stressed that financial regulation in Switzerland is dramatically more strict than portrayed fictionally. Swiss banking is prominently featured in the following films and television shows: {{unordered list {{quote box == See also ==