Switzerland as an Offshore Jurisdiction

Thinking of using Switzerland as an offshore jurisdiction, think again!

The following comes from the Swiss embassy page and speaks for itself clearly see that the Swiss banking secrecy is not what it used to be.

Bank Secrecy Facts

Banking secrecy does not protect any criminal or illegal activities

Swiss banking secrecy is by no means absolute. It is immediately canceled if a Swiss judge or prosecutor gives a lifting order in the context of a national or international criminal investigation. This also applies to foreign criminal investigations of terrorist financing, money laundering, insider trading and tax fraud.

Measures to Prevent and Combat Financial Crimes

Switzerland has comprehensive legislation to prevent and combat financial crime. Money laundering Act requires financial institutions, such as banks, fund managers, insurance companies, securities dealers, and casinos know the identity of their clients. In addition, to clarify the financial institutions the source of the funds and keep for at least 10 years after the termination of the business relationship. Swiss law forbids banks to money that they suspect that comes from a felony to accept. Banks are required to freeze account with suspicious transactions and money laundering reporting a Hotline immediately. As a result of the criminal investigation, the account remains frozen. Without exception, Swiss banking laws require officers to testify and provide information to the Swiss authorities in the case of a criminal investigation. Failure to comply with these regulations is punishable by up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of 1 million Swiss francs.

There are no anonymous accounts in Switzerland

Switzerland outlaws “anonymous accounts” without exception their account holders must provide identity documents to banks and the banks are required to check this information. This rule also applies to numbered accounts. Numbered accounts are no different than the ordinary accounts, except that the details of the account holder is only available to selected senior bank officers, rather than to all employees of the bank. That said, all of the data in numbered accounts is accessible to the authorities a criminal investigation, the same way it is for regular accounts. This is the end of the quotation from the Swiss embassy page.

Switzerland has no anonymous bearer share corporations, in fact, Swiss buying hundreds of anonymous Panama bearer share companies every month and they use lawyers for their clients.

A Swiss bank will pay little attention to a depositor, unless the customer has more than $ 25 million. Opening balances with Swiss banks can often be $ 100,000 to $ 250,000 for the large banks older established.

Swiss banks are known to American customers asking for their social security numbers.

Swiss banks charge outrageous fees often pay no interest rather than charging you fees each month just to keep your account. There These costs will diminish your ability.

The Swiss Post Office Bank is a rehash of a bank. Many unscrupulous websites selling Swiss bank accounts and what they provide to you is something more than to open an account with the Swiss Post Office Bank the forms. The Swiss Post Office Bank has no idea that they are selling these forms. The Postal Bank is a system designed for a Swiss person to their utility bills and other recurring monthly bills to pay, it’s not like a real bank. Often the Swiss citizen has their payroll check deposited into this account electronically. We tried opening such an account to see what would happen. They have a website, but we were never able to figure out how to send or receive a transfer. Figure They sent us information in a variety of languages, rarely in the correct language. It took a long time to open 6-8 weeks the account. Documents had to be notarized and apostilled. I would think that almost everyone who opens such an account would frustrate and use it because it is so unfriendly. Since it is not a “real” government-owned bank that we could never figure out if it was covered by the Swiss banking laws or not.

Switzerland is seen as a port and banking is no longer a valued responsible for the privacy.