'Swiss banking secrecy has no place in globalised world'

By the Editors

Switzerland's bank secrecy laws and anonymous numbered accounts have a long and shameful history: They have been used to help criminals conceal illicit gains, to deny Holocaust survivors their stolen inheritances and to help the world's wealthy hide taxable income.

So it's a welcome sign that 11 firms may be on the verge of agreeing to pay billions of dollars in penalties and reveal the names of Americans who used Swiss bank accounts to evade US taxes. The banks, including Credit Suisse, and several foreign institutions doing business in Switzerland, are hardly doing this out of some sense of moral duty. US prosecutors held out the threat of criminal indictments, which is tantamount to a death sentence for a bank.

Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said that the country wants to reach an agreement with the US so that Switzerland isn't confronted "with the same issue time and again." If that's the case, Switzerland shouldn't assume the US will accept deals like those reached earlier this year with the UK and Germany, allowing the identities of customers with untaxed assets to remain secret.

The US should insist that Swiss banks be required by law to provide all necessary information, including the identities, of tax cheats on an ongoing basis. Swiss law now prescribes harsh penalties for anyone disclosing information about bank customers.