In the wake of Credit Suisse being found guilty by US investigators of tax evasion and fined $2.6 bln SNB president Thomas Jordan has today been voicing his concerns over the validity of his banks following on from a speech in Bern yesterday
Disputes with other countries have called the Swiss banks’ cross-border wealth management business into question in a fundamental manner.
Great efforts are required to ensure that the Swiss banking centre can remain successful in the global arena in the future.
In addition to the CS conviction Swiss banks have been the focus of US probes into tax evasion with a similar fine also levied against UBS ( both former employers of mine, oops!) while other banks such as Julius Baer, Basler Kantonalbank and Zuercher Kantonalbank are still under investigation.
Whatever you may think of the scandal, in an “I told you so” kind of mentality given the long held misgivings over Swiss banking privacy, we should be careful what we wish for. This may be a question of morality/ethical behaviour but is yet another blood-seeping wound in the unfolding story of rapidly reducing forex market volumes in the wake of manipulation investigations.
And that, quite aside from the moral issues, is something that must concern us all.
