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Questions:
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Answers:
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What services do private banks provide?
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Private banks provide the broadest range of services in financial matters. Please check our services database to see what services you can get by whom.
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What is needed to open up a Swiss Bank account?
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1. Name, address, date of birth, profession, contact information (same for joint account partners or beneficiaries of power of attorney).
2. Details about your banking needs (account currency, amount of deposit, standard transactions you will require, preferred language, etc.)
3. An accurate description of the economic origin of your funds to comply with Swiss anti money laundering laws.
4. An authenticated copy of your passport (we will instruct you on how to authenticate a document in your country). We cannot open an account on the basis of a driver's license or an expired passport.
5. A recent utility bill (water, gas, electricity but not telephone) to validate your legal address.
6. Any documents necessary to substantiate your economic background.
Another way is to open up an account is to contact the bank with which you want to do business with. Aks and get their conditions for opening an account.
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What kind of accounts?
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Classic Swiss bank account.
Investment fund account.
Swiss numbered account.
Internet account.
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How much money is being laundered worldwide?
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The FATF figures, that the money laundered each year ranges between US Dollar (USD) 590 billion and USD 1.5 trillion. That would be between two and five percent of the world’s gross domestic product. And that represents the size of a large industrial sector.
“Despite increasing international attention and stronger anti-money laundering controls, some current estimates are that $500 billion to $1 trillion in criminal proceeds are laundered through banks worldwide each year, with about half of that amount moved through United States banks”, says the US Senate Minority staff report for permanent subcommittee on investigations hearing on private banking and money laundering (a case study of opportunities and vulnerabilities, November 9, 1999).
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How is money laundered?
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In the initial or placement stage of money laundering, the launderer introduces his illegal profits into the financial system. This might be done by breaking up large amounts of cash into less conspicuous smaller sums that are then deposited directly into a bank account, or by purchasing a series of monetary instruments (cheques, money orders, etc.) that are then collected and deposited into accounts at another location.
After the funds have entered the financial system, the second – or layering – stage takes place. In this phase, the launderer engages in a series of conversions or movements of the funds to distance them from their source. The funds might be channelled through the purchase and sales of investment instruments, or the launderer might simply wire the funds through a series of accounts at various banks across the globe. This use of widely scattered accounts for laundering is especially prevalent in those jurisdictions that do not co-operate in anti-money laundering investigations. In some instances, the launderer might disguise the transfers as payments for goods or services, thus giving them a legitimate appearance.
Having successfully processed his criminal profits through the first two phases of the money laundering process, the launderer then moves them to the third stage – integration – in which the funds re-enter the legitimate economy. The launderer might choose to invest the funds into real estate, luxury assets, or business ventures.
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Where does money laundering occur?
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As money laundering is a necessary consequence of almost all profit generating crime, it can occur practically anywhere in the world. Generally, money launderers tend to seek out areas in which there is a low risk of detection due to weak or ineffective anti-money laundering programmes. Because the objective of money laundering is to get the illegal funds back to the individual who generated them, launderers usually prefer to move funds through areas with stable financial systems.
Money laundering activity may also be concentrated geographically according to the stage the laundered funds have reached. At the placement stage, for example, the funds are usually processed relatively close to the under-lying activity; often, but not in every case, in the country where the funds originate.
With the layering phase, the launderer might choose an offshore financial centre, a large regional business centre, or a world banking centre – any location that provides an adequate financial or business infrastructure. At this stage, the laundered funds may also only transit bank accounts at various locations where this can be done without leaving traces of their source or ultimate destination.
Finally, at the integration phase, launderers might choose to invest laundered funds in still other locations if they were generated in unstable economies or locations offering limited investment opportunities.
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How does money laundering affect business?
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The integrity of the banking and financial services marketplace depends heavily on the perception that it functions within a framework of high legal, professional and ethical standards. A reputation for integrity is the one of the most valuable assets of a financial institution.
If funds from criminal activity can be easily processed through a particular institution – either because its employees or directors have been bribed or because the institution turns a blind eye to the criminal nature of such funds – the institution could be drawn into active complicity with criminals and become part of the criminal network itself. Evidence of such complicity will have a damaging effect on the attitudes of other financial intermediaries and of regulatory authorities, as well as ordinary customers.
As for the potential negative macroeconomic consequences of unchecked money laundering, the International Monetary Fund has cited inexplicable changes in money demand, prudential risks to bank soundness, contamination effects on legal financial transactions, and increased volatility of international capital flows and exchange rates due to unanticipated cross-border asset transfers.
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How does fighting money laundering help fight crime?
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Money laundering is a threat to the good functioning of a financial sys-tem; however, it can also be the Achilles heel of criminal activity.
In law enforcement investigations into organised criminal activity, it is often the connections made through financial transaction records that allow hidden assets to be located and that establish the identity of the criminals and the criminal organisation responsible.
When criminal funds are derived from robbery, extortion, embezzlement or fraud, a money laundering investigation is frequently the only way to locate the stolen funds and restore them to the victims.
Most importantly, however, targeting the money laundering aspect of criminal activity and depriving the criminal of his ill-gotten gains means hitting him where he is vulnerable. Without a usable profit, the criminal activity will not continue.
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Can a non resident open a Swiss bank account?
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Is the Swiss banking secrecy lifted in case of tax evasion?
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Why is the Swiss Banking Secrecy attacked by the EU?
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The official explanation is to establish a fair taxation system in Europe in order to take hold of all income a person gets from securities and other sources.
But the real reason is much simpler. Since of all private banking centers of the world Switzerland manages the worlds biggest part of all private assets it is for the other European private banking centers very interesting to weaken Switzerland's position in favour to the other European private banking centers. However, taxation is not the primary reason since Great Britain and the United States - who fight vigourously against the Banking Secrecy - are well known as masters of tax planning in establishing trusts (also off-shore) which prevent a direct access to the capital of individuals by tax authorities as well by creditors.
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