Swiss bank secrecy in toughest test since Nazi gold

More than a decade after holocaust survivors won compensation from Swiss banks for emptying Jewish accounts that had lain dormant since the war, the pressure is on again to dismantle Swiss banking secrecy.

This time, the tax collector is leading the charge.

With Washington joining Germany to press for an end to a code they believe helps tax dodgers, many see it as only a matter of time before the Swiss lift the cloak guarding the secrets of the world's wealthy.

"The challenge to bank secrecy is a thunderstorm which has been brewing since the holocaust money," said Sebastian Dovey of consultancy Scorpio Partnership. "It is a hot potato and I don't think the heat is going to be turned down."

Nearly one-third of wealth kept abroad globally is in Swiss banks: the Swiss Bankers Association and consultants estimate this at $2.2 trillion, making the Alpine state the globe's biggest offshore centre ahead of Britain and Luxembourg.

But its code of secrecy – which local myth inaccurately claims was introduced to protect fleeing Jews – is as controversial as it is protective.

Laid down in a 1934 law, it has spawned plots for bestselling thrillers, but also real-life intrigues such as that of Gizella Weisshaus.

Shortly before her father was murdered by the Nazis during the war, he told his children about gold coins and jewellery he had stowed away as Germany's army marched towards their home in Romania.

"I found the money and his gold watch hidden in the roof of my house," she told Reuters by telephone from New York. "And there were some pieces of paper. It didn't mean anything to me."

Decades later, the Auschwitz survivor was still trying to unravel the riddle of those long-discarded papers which likely contained the numbers of Swiss bank accounts.

But like many others who travelled to Zurich to trace her father's money, she was turned away repeatedly.

She later became central to a series of legal actions taken against the banks and in the mid-1990s under pressure from Washington and Jewish community group the World Jewish Congress, they finally paid $1.2 billion for accounts they had sucked dry.

Now Switzerland faces its toughest assault since. In an escalation of a U.S. investigation into its biggest bank, Raoul Weil, head of UBS's wealth management business, was recently charged with helping Americans hide billions.

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