Swiss bank secrecy emerges from 2009 with holes

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.


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


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