Katharina Bart: «Swiss Banks Not Out of the Woods Yet»

Swiss banks aren't out of the woods yet on penalties for hiding illicit and untaxed money, finews.com's Katharina Bart told finews.com-TV.

Switzerland's private banks have paid billions to make amends for helping clients avoid or cheat on their taxes. The U.S. alone won roughly $10 billion off Swiss banks including Credit Suisse, Julius Baer, and more than 80 smaller firms.

«I don’t think Switzerland is quite out of the woods in terms of penalites. We won’t maybe see such a big wave of that magnitude as we did in the U.S., but it’s certainly not over,» finews.com senior contributor Katharina Bart said on finews.com-TV (see below).

The alpine nation has come under massive pressure since 2008, with Switzerland ultimately casting off its stiff secrecy laws.

«The fact that the U.S. had such big success in getting restitution for those accounts that Switzerland banks held on behalf of Americans, hiding their money from the IRS effectively, has encouraged some other places in Europe to try similar things,» she said.

End of Secrecy the Death Knell?

From next year, Switzerland will exchange data on clients with several dozen foreign countries hunting their tax cheats, a move which has fundamentally shifted the dynamic in Switzerland's trillion-Swiss franc offshore banking industry.

Will the end of Switzerland's long-held secrecy laws signal the death knell for the private banking industry?

«It was a certainly huge setback for Switzerland, but I think they have a plan and are managing to adjust to this post-secrecy reality,» Bart said.