After relentless international pressure on Swiss banking secrecy, history came full circle last week when Germany decided to use stolen bank data to corner taxpayers with money hidden in Switzerland.
“Banking secrecy is being called into question,” said Michel Derobert, secretary general of the Swiss Private Bankers Association. “It is important for past clientele, and it’s losing its importance for the clients of the future.”
Swiss banks were legally sworn to secrecy over their clients’ affairs in 1934, as a wave of espionage by Germany Nazi regime against Germans — including Jews and political opponents — with deposits in Switzerland added to other tensions of the era.
An anonymous whistleblower’s recent offer to German authorities — thought to be the third leak in two years — annoyed the banking establishment and fueled domestic doubts about the value of secrecy.
The Swiss Bankers’ Association (SBA) condemned the German decision, claiming that Germany was turning into “a receiver of stolen goods” and testing good neighborly relations.
“It’s part of their strategy not to name the bank, to keep people worried,” said James Nason, a spokesman for association.
Germany has been in the forefront of European pressure on Switzerland to counter tax evasion in recent years. That was followed by the G20 last year, which forced the Swiss to water down secrecy and bolster cooperation.
“Banking secrecy no longer has a future. It has run its course,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Saturday edition of Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“It is obviously not an easy decision for Switzerland. Banking secrecy is a part of its state tradition,” he said. “But international cooperation changes national traditions. Switzerland finds itself in this process of change.”
The SBA says more than half of securities in Swiss banks are foreign held, but just 17.5 percent in recent years belonged to foreign private clients while the bulk came from institutional investors.
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