Switzerland’s private banks have started to ban their top executives from travelling abroad, even to neighbouring France and Germany, because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy.
The travel bans, which have not been brought in by all banks, have focused on those visiting the US, following the detention there last year of a senior private banker from UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, as part of a federal tax investigation.
The restrictions come ahead of next week’s Group of 20 summit where a clampdown on tax havens is set to be discussed.
Under pressure from other countries, Switzerland, agreed this month to ease its bank secrecy laws and accept international standards on tax transparency.
Many private bankers in Switzerland reacted this week with a mixture of intense anger, at what they see as an unjustified attack by big countries, and concern about the threat to their business model.
“It is not really about bank secrecy; it is about solving an internal problem [for the big countries] by finding an enemy outside to bash,” said one senior banker.