FAQ's

In principle, any adult person can open an account at a bank in Switzerland. However, the legal provisions of the home country with regard to cross border business have to be respected. Banks reserve furthermore the right to reject customers. For example, a bank might refuse to offer banking services to a so-called "politically-exposed person" who the bank believes would pose too great a reputational risk if he or she were to become a client. A bank might also refuse to start a banking relationship if it has doubts about the origins of the potential client's funds because Swiss banks are forbidden by law to accept money which they know or must assume stem from crime.

A company may open a Swiss bank account irrespective of whether its registered office is in Switzerland or abroad. If the company's registered office is in Switzerland then the company is identified with the relevant extract from the Swiss Commercial Register which the bank may download from the relevant website. The identity of legal entities not listed in the Swiss Commercial Register is verified on the basis of their charters or equivalent documents. Companies with their registered office abroad must respect the legal provisions of their home country with regard to cross border business in the first place. Otherwise, banks may proceed according to companies registered in Switzerland. However, if the registered office is in a country that does not operate an official commercial register then the company must prove it exists by showing equivalent relevant credentials. Extracts from commercial registers or equivalent documents must not be older than 12 months. A document dated older than 12 months may be used in conjunction with an audit report or a "certificate of good standing" dated not older than 12 months.

Special rules apply to domiciliary companies. Under Swiss law "domiciliary companies" are entities that do not conduct any commercial or manufacturing business or any other form of commercial operation in the country where their registered office is located. Besides producing the identification documents mentioned above they must also declare the identity of the beneficial owners of their assets.

First of all it must be understood that Swiss banks have very strict procedures concerning the opening of accounts, irrespective of the domicile of the customer. In line with Swiss laws governing "due diligence", the bank must verify the identity of the customer on the basis of an official document (e.g. a passport). If the Swiss bank you are interested in has a subsidiary, branch or representative office in your country you may consider contacting this office. If the bank is not represented in your country, please get in touch directly with the bank in Switzerland which will then provide you with further information.

No, because legal reasons prevent the customer identification procedure (SuisseID) from being carried out entirely online via the Internet for the moment. At the present time banks in Switzerland must follow the identification procedures laid down for opening an account by correspondence. In accordance with the Due Diligence Agreement (CDB 08), the bank verifies the identity of the contracting partner by obtaining a certified copy of an official identification document (passport, identity card, etc.). The certified copy may be provided by a branch, representative office or group company of the bank; by a correspondent bank; by a financial intermediary specifically appointed by the bank; or by a notary public or public office that customarily issues such authentications. The bank also checks the address of the new customer through an exchange of correspondence.

For more information on this subject please consult the "Frequently Asked Questions" on the website of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA (www.finma.ch).

First of all, the bank's staff will certainly ask questions to fulfil the bank's legal obligations with regard to due diligence. This will include asking for proof of your identity and also establishing the identity of the beneficial owner of the assets if you are depositing funds on behalf of someone else. The bank's staff might also ask about the origin of the funds, the nature of your professional business, your general financial situation and your usual financial transactions.

As mentioned above, Swiss banks are obliged to verify the identity of a client. For this reason a bank would very much prefer to meet you face-to-face for an initial discussion. The bank will certainly want to see official identification papers such as a valid passport or an equivalent official identification document containing a photograph. The bank may also ask for documentation that can prove the origin of your funds, such as the contract for a house sale, a statement from a foreign bank, a receipt from the sale of securities, etc.

No. There is no such thing as an "anonymous" account in Switzerland. Under Swiss law, the bank must know who you are. Anonymous accounts at Swiss banks exist only in the imagination of thriller writers!

The procedure for opening a "numbered" account is exactly the same as for any other type of account. The bank must verify your identity and establish the identity of the beneficial owner. "Numbered" accounts are certainly not anonymous. With a "numbered" account your business within the bank is carried out not under your name but under a number or code. This is simply an internal security measure to restrict knowledge of the customer's identity to a small group of employees in the bank and apart from this a "numbered" account enjoys no additional privileges in terms of confidentiality. "Numbered" accounts should not be used for international wire transfers. According to international regulations the client's name, address and account number must be given when making international wire transfers.

Most Swiss high-street banks do not require a minimum deposit for an ordinary current or savings account. However, some of the private bankers and other banks offering private banking and wealth management services do require a minimum deposit.

No. Many banks offer accounts in US dollars, euros and other currencies besides the Swiss franc.

All banks operating in Switzerland must be licensed by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA. The FINMA, which is a member of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, regulates and supervises all banks in Switzerland according to the Basel Committee's standards. These standards cover not only equity and capital adequacy but also the entire scope of prudential and behavioural rules. As an additional safety measure, Swiss law demands capital adequacy standards even higher than those required by the Basel Accord. Swiss banks can therefore certainly be counted amongst the safest in the world.

In Switzerland great importance has traditionally been attached to the protection of an individual's privacy, and this has always included financial privacy. Surveys consistently show that the vast majority of the Swiss people want to maintain this protection. However, the high level of confidentiality Swiss banks offer both their domestic and foreign customers is not absolute and certainly does not shield criminals. As a matter of principle the rights to privacy can be suspended when a criminal investigation is underway. Our aim is to protect the privacy of the honest bank client while exposing criminals to the full force of the law.

Money laundering is the covert introduction of illegally acquired assets into the legitimate economy with the aim of disguising their true illegal origin.

This may take place in three phases:

Money laundering is usually associated with drug trafficking or organised crime. However, there are many other crimes which may be predicate offences to money laundering, e.g. embezzlement, corruption, extortion or human trafficking, to name just a few.

Switzerland’s mechanisms for combating money laundering, which were established with the Agreement on Due Diligence (CDB) in 1977 and have been expanding ever since, today include provisions in the Swiss Penal Code (Art. 305bis and 305ter StGB), the Federal Act on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Financial Sector (AMLA) and a corresponding Ordinance of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (FINMA Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance, AMLO-FINMA).

Swiss law is therefore broadly in compliance with the international recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF report on the third country evaluation of April 2005 attested that Switzerland has a well functioning network of preventative measures against money laundering and terrorist financing. However, the Federal Department of Finance (FDF) did look into the implementation of individual criticisms that FATF experts had levelled at Switzerland's anti-money laundering mechanisms. The resulting revised Anti-Money Laundering Act came into force, after the referendum period had expired unused, on 1 February 2009. The Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance was subsequently also revised, with the updated version entering into force on 1 January 2011.

The Agreement on Due Diligence (CDB), which is issued by the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) as a set of self-regulation guidelines and is revised and updated every five years, has since 1977 laid down the obligations of banks with regard to the identification of clients and beneficial owners. It prohibits active assistance in the flight of capital and tax evasion. The statutory bank auditors are commissioned by the banks and FINMA to verify bank compliance with this Agreement. Special investigators and a CDB Supervisory Board assess breaches of the Agreement, and offences are punishable by fines of up to CHF 10 million.

Bank client confidentiality means that the banks have a duty to keep confidential all facts that involve their customers. At the same time, it is a right of the customer, for it is the customers not the banks who are entitled to the protected data. Bank client confidentiality protects the clients’ privacy and is thus comparable to the discretion exercised by lawyers or doctors. The right to privacy is a mainstay of the Swiss legal system, and it is laid down in the Federal Constitution (section 13).

No. Bank customer confidentiality has never been absolute. Swiss banks are obliged, for example, to disclose information in criminal proceedings against their clients. This is an absolute obligation, regardless of whether the offence was committed in Switzerland or abroad. Compared with other countries Switzerland has always been very successful at combating organized crime and money laundering. Switzerland is one of the cleanest financial centers in the world.

No, that is not possible. Banks follow so-called "know-your-customer" rules which require staff to identify the person opening an account and, where necessary, to establish the identity of the beneficial owner. Incidentally it was the banks themselves who drew up the extremely strict, internationally recognized rules for verifying the identity of their clients as a deterrent to money of criminal origin.

No. Contrary to what one might gather from thrillers and the media, there is no such thing as an anonymous account in Switzerland. The name of the holder of a numbered account is known, though only to a small group of people inside the bank. As far as bank customer confidentiality is concerned there is no difference between numbered accounts and any other sort of account.